Dani Alves' defense alleges 'financial suffocation' in sexual abuse trial: his fortune

The former Brazilian soccer player Barça and PSG Dani Alves He began to be tried this Monday in Barcelona for the alleged rape in December 2022 of a woman, whose identity the justice system is trying to protect in a process of great media interest.

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The young woman testified for just over an hour before a court of the Barcelona hearingwhich had already determined that his testimony would be behind closed doors and separated from the athlete by a screen to avoid “visual confrontation” with the accused.

Likewise, his voice was distorted and his image was pixelated in the recording intended for the exclusive use of the judges, in case a leak occurs. The process, scheduled until Wednesday and followed by dozens of journalists, will resume on Tuesday

Dressed in a white shirt and jeans, Alves, 40 years old, followed the session in silence from the front row, with a serious expression and closely watched by a police officer. The footballer, in provisional prison for just over a year and who assures that the relations were consensual, is accused of having raped the woman in the bathrooms of the nightclub. Sutton of Barcelona.

The Prosecutor's Office requests nine years in prison for the former Brazilian international for an alleged crime of “sexual assault with penetration”, in addition to the payment of compensation of 150,000 euros (about $162,000) to the woman and another decade of supervised freedom after serving the sentence.

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Dani Alves's fortune

Ines Guardiola, footballer's lawyer Dani Alves has asked the Barcelona hearing to annul the case for sexual assault, concluding that his rights have been violated because he was investigated for a month “behind his back” and has endured the “parallel trial” of public opinion. His request was rejected.

The lawyer has insisted that in this case the presumption of innocence of Alves because he has been subjected to a “parallel trial”, through a “media campaign” and a “tendentious submission”, with a “constant and incessant” drip of information to present him as a “sexual aggressor”, causing the “social conviction” of that he is guilty.

This parallel judgment includes presumptions about her financial capacity, which according to the lawyer is not as comfortable as the press proclaims, but, on the contrary, Alves suffers from a “stifled economic situation”: he has a debt of half a million euros with the Treasury, an embargo of 150,000 euros and his bank balance is 70,000 euros.

However, the site Celebrity Net Worth revealed that the fortune of Daniel Alves rises to the 60 million dollars, spread across various assets, investments and companies, such as the player representation agency Flashforward Group.

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Much of his money came from sponsorships with brands and the salaries he earned from the respective teams he played for. In Barcelona His salary reached 10 million euros a year.

In Pumas from Mexico, His last team, the Brazilian managed to earn 300 thousand dollars a month. But all the money would be blocked by the banks, the aforementioned media explained.

Key statement from the victim's friend

As described by Prosecutor's Officethe events occurred in a reserved area of ​​that fashionable nightclub where Alveswho was familiar with the place and was there with a friend, coincided with the woman, who was accompanied by a cousin and a friend.

After inviting them to champagne, the athlete would have invited the young woman to enter another exclusive area where the small sink was, which she did not know about. -“Slobbery attitude”-There, according to the Prosecutor's Office, Alves would have shown a “violent attitude” towards the woman, whom he attacked and forced to have sexual relations.

“The victim repeatedly requested that he let her go, that she wanted to get out of there, and the defendant did not allow it,” the Public Ministry indicated in its indictment, which states that the woman experienced a “situation of anguish and terror.”

The complainant's friend corroborated this version this Monday and stated that Alves showed a “slobbery attitude” that night. With the complainant, his behavior was “more obsessive,” recalled the young woman, who burst into tears when recalling how her friend, “crying inconsolably,” asked her to leave after leaving the bathroom, telling her that Alves had done her “a lot of harm.”

The woman, who after receiving medical attention that night ended up reporting the events on January 2, 2023, currently suffers from “post-traumatic stress disorder of globally high intensity” for which she is undergoing treatment, according to the Prosecutor's Office.

“She doesn't sleep, she has to take medication (…) she has started taking antidepressants,” said her cousin during her statement, in which she indicated that the complainant “barely leaves the house” after what happened. -Different versions-Alves, who initially denied knowing the girl, has changed his version several times and ended up admitting that they had had relations, although consensual, and that if at first he had lied it was to try to save her marriage. His statement will be the last the court hears, on Wednesday.

The Barcelona Court rejected the various appeals from the athlete's lawyers asking for his provisional release, alleging, among others, that there was a risk of flight. The possibility of an agreement between the parties, which could have entailed a hypothetical recognition of guilt on the part of Alves and compensation to the victim, in exchange for a partial reduction of the sentence, hovered over the case until the very beginning of the trial.

“The agreement was not possible because we did not agree with the sentence proposed by the defense,” said the complainant's lawyer.Ester García, at the end of the first session. The footballer, who was part of the successful Barça of Messi and Guardiola, was on vacation in Barcelona, ​​after the World Cup in Qatar, when the events occurred. Hours after his entry into prison in January 2023, his team at the time, the Pumas from Mexico, terminated his contract.

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With information from EFE and AFP.

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