Boris Becker was sentenced to two years and six months in prison without parole on Friday in London for delaying bankruptcy. Judge Deborah Taylor ordered the former tennis star to serve half that time in prison before he could be released on certain conditions. Overall, the judge issued a seven-year prison sentence for the four of 24 counts on which the jury found Becker guilty three weeks ago. However, she decreed that the individual sentences could be served simultaneously.
The fourth charge led to the highest penalty, according to which Becker withheld from his creditors after the bankruptcy declaration in June 2017 by transferring larger amounts to other accounts around 427,000 euros. Taylor noted the defense’s argument that Becker lost everything. However, she objected that the tennis pro had been humiliated, but it was striking that he had shown neither humility nor remorse, but had hidden behind his advisors. Becker relied excessively on this, and it was his responsibility to disclose his assets to the insolvency administrators.
Becker sat tense in a glass booth during the sentencing hearing. He then took the bag that his eldest son Noah had handed him into the dressing room before the trial began and immediately left the room through a side door. He must begin his detention immediately. His partner and son left the courtroom without him.
His defense attorney speaks of a tragedy
According to the bankruptcy authority, the sentence clearly shows that concealing assets in bankruptcy proceedings is a serious offense for which the perpetrators will be prosecuted and brought to justice. In addition to withholding the 427,000 euros, Becker was found guilty of concealing ownership of a property in his hometown of Leimen as well as a loan of 835,000 euros from a Liechtenstein bank and shares in a data company.
In his plea for a reduced sentence, Becker’s defense attorney had previously told the court that the former tennis star had lost everything. Jonathan Laidlaw also said his client had already paid a heavy price for his financial mismanagement and the crimes a jury found him guilty of three weeks ago.
Laidlaw spoke of a tragedy: Boris Becker’s career was destroyed, his reputation was ruined. Any prospect of earning an income in the future is barred to him. He will need help. Becker not only fell out of favor, but suffered public humiliation. According to his lawyer, his client had already received a sentence before the verdict that no insolvent person had ever suffered. That would have been shown by the unsightly scenes outside the South London courthouse on Friday morning.
Laidlaw pleaded for a suspended sentence given the mitigating circumstances. He asked the judge to consider that Becker had acted out of an initial emergency. The transfers were to pay alimony and pay bills, not to finance a lavish lifestyle. Becker’s mistake was to have decided on these transfers himself instead of involving the insolvency administrator. But these were payments that the court would probably have approved if the application had been made.
Previously, criminal attorney Rebecca Chalkley had repeatedly accused Becker of deliberately defrauding his creditors. She underpinned her recommendation of a harsh sentence, among other things, by referring to Becker’s conviction for tax evasion twenty years ago in Munich. Chalkley argued that concealment of assets constituted a breach of trust that interfered with the functioning of a free society and that such conduct should be punishable by imprisonment as a deterrent.
Becker had followed the lawyers’ pros and cons dead straight in the court’s glass booth. The British press had been hot on his heels for the past few days. The paparazzi photographed every trip he made, to upscale department store Harrods, for example, where he bought a bag, and to a council flat in west London, where he is said to have seen a physiotherapist.
Meanwhile, the BBC will have to do without the Wimbledon comments with which Boris Becker saved the hearts of the British. However, it was initially unclear on Friday evening whether the former Wimbledon winner wanted to appeal the verdict.