Dani Alves sentenced to four and a half years in prison for sexual assault

A Barcelona court has sentenced footballer Dani Alves to four and a half years in prison for the crime of sexual assault. The court finds that the athlete raped a young woman at the Sutton nightclub in Barcelona in the early hours of January 31, 2022.

In its ruling, the 21st Section of the Barcelona Court rejects the acquittal requested by the footballer’s defense and agrees with the thesis put forward by the prosecutor’s office, which requested nine years’ imprisonment, and the private prosecution of the victim, who is acting as a lawyer. Esther Garcia, who asked for up to twelve years in prison.

The verdict lends credibility to the victim, who from the first minute after the attack stuck to the same version of events, that is, that Alves raped her in a tiny bathroom in a nightclub booth.

At trial, the football player argued the opposite: after several changes to the version, he argued that it was consensual sex and that he was drunk. This attempt to reduce the sentence was met with a categorical denial from two psychologists, paradoxically hired by the footballer’s defense, who said that Alves knew what was happening, despite the fact that he was drinking alcohol.