Boris Becker Sentenced to Two and a Half Years for Hiding Assets in Bankruptcy

LONDON — Boris Becker, the six-time Grand Slam tennis champion, was sentenced to two and a half years in jail on Friday in his chapter case, after he was discovered responsible by a London court docket of hiding tens of millions of {dollars}’ value of belongings and loans to keep away from paying his money owed.

The sentence punctuated a startling fall from grace for Mr. Becker, 54, who parlayed his tennis ability, ebullient persona and enterprise ambitions into a private fortune earlier than he was discovered responsible this month at Southwark Crown Court of 4 costs associated to his June 2017 chapter.

The chapter case meant Mr. Becker was legally obliged to disclose all of his belongings in order that they could possibly be used to pay his collectors, however the court docket discovered a number of cases in which he failed to meet his obligations for disclosure.

Mr. Becker failed to disclose a property he owned in his dwelling nation of Germany, hid a mortgage of €825,000 (round $872,000) and belongings valued at €426,930.90, and didn’t disclose shares owned in a playing tech agency, in accordance to Britain’s Insolvency Service. He was acquitted of 20 different counts relating to his chapter.

Mr. Becker made tennis historical past in 1985 when at age 17, he grew to become the youngest champion in the historical past of males’s singles at Wimbledon. He went on to win there two extra occasions, in 1986 and 1989, and took three different Grand Slam singles titles: the U.S. Open in 1989 and the Australian Open in 1991 and 1996. He retired from skilled tennis in 1999.

The tennis star was the topic of huge consideration not simply for his success on the court docket. The tabloids additionally stored a shut watch on his tumultuous love life, together with a divorce and a fleeting affair with a Russian girl with whom he fathered a little one.

The precarious monetary scenario of Mr. Becker has been below scrutiny for a number of years.

In 2017, a non-public financial institution in London, Arbuthnot Latham, made an utility for chapter proceedings in opposition to Mr. Becker, claiming that fee of a massive debt owed by him was practically two years overdue. He was quickly declared formally bankrupt by a London court docket, which discovered that he couldn’t repay his money owed.

That similar yr, a Swiss court docket rejected a declare by a former Swiss enterprise associate, who claimed Mr. Becker owed him greater than $40 million.

As he fended off his collectors, in 2018, Mr. Becker sought to declare diplomatic immunity, as a result of the Central African Republic had named him as its attaché to the European Union for sports activities, tradition and humanitarian affairs.

If that declare had been granted, any motion in opposition to Mr. Becker would have required the approval of the international secretary, who on the time was Boris Johnson, the present prime minister. But Mr. Becker finally dropped the declare.

In 2002, Mr. Becker was convicted in Germany of revenue tax evasion, given two years’ probation and fined practically $300,000. The verdict got here six years after German tax investigators raided Mr. Becker’s dwelling in Munich.

Mr. Becker is alleged to have gained tens of millions of {dollars} in prize cash and sponsorship offers. He has had a number of enterprise ventures over time, together with a line of branded tennis gear. He has usually appeared as a tv commentator for the BBC at Wimbledon, and he coached Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-ranked males’s singles participant, for a few years.