GERMANY: PROSECUTORS SAY THEY HAVE BROUGHT CHARGES AGAINST TENNIS STAR BORIS BECKER FOR ALLEGED TAX EVASION

Record ID: 677762

  • Title: GERMANY: PROSECUTORS SAY THEY HAVE BROUGHT CHARGES AGAINST TENNIS STAR BORIS BECKER FOR ALLEGED TAX EVASION
  • Date: 16th July 2002
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (NOVEMBER 15, 2001) (REUTERS) BECKER WITH CHILDREN AT YOUTH CLUB IN BERLIN BECKER SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS WIDE OF BECKER SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS BECKER AND THEN BERLIN MAYOR EBERHARD DIEPGEN CLOSE-UP OF BECKER Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 31st July 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MUNICH/OBERHACHING AND BERLIN, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Crime,People,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA2J1DMEH7WQI8NVKX3Z8CX6IQ4
  • Story Text: German prosecutors have said they had brought charges against three-times Wimbledon tennis champion Boris Becker for alleged tax evasion, the latest in a series of blows to hit the sports icon.
    According a statement on Saturday (July 13) by the head of the Munich public prosecutors office, Manfred Wick, there is sufficient reason to suspect tax offences.
    The Munich district court has not yet decided whether the charges were admissible for court action to go ahead, according to Wick.
    Wick declined to specify the charges. Becker, 34, has been under investigation for allegedly claiming his residence was in Monaco, a tax haven, while in fact living in Germany.
    Media reports last year said prosecutors were to demand millions of euros in back taxes from him and that he could face a jail sentence.
    The former world number one, who retired from professional tennis in 1999, remains a sports icon in Germany despite a series of setbacks since he quit the game.
    Becker tried his luck in sports marketing and advertisement and attracted unwanted publicity when he divorced his wife of seven years, the German-American Barbara Feltus. He agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement.
    Becker then admitted fathering a baby girl in London with Russian model Angela Ermakova and promised to support the child.
    The tax case echoes the woes of Germanys other tennis darling, Steffi Graf, whose father Peter spent nearly two years in jail after being convicted in 1997 of evading 7 million U.S. dollars in tax on Steffis earnings.
    Becker has said his personal life spun into crisis after his father, Karl Heinz, died in 1999. He said in March he was finding happiness with a new girlfriend, Iranian-born Patrice Farameh.
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