Soccer world champion Jérôme Boateng has also been convicted of bodily harm in his appeal process. The district court of Munich I imposed a fine of 120 daily rates of 10,000 euros each, a total of 1.2 million euros. This would mean that Boateng would have a criminal record, unlike the first-instance judgement.
Last year, the district court imposed a higher fine overall, but the number of daily rates was only half as high – specifically: 60 daily rates of 30,000 euros each, a total of 1.8 million euros.
“For us, the facts are more than proven,” said judge Andreas Forstner on Wednesday. The court saw it as proven that Boateng hit, injured and insulted his then partner on a joint Caribbean vacation in 2018. Boateng has now been convicted in two cases of bodily harm, in the first instance only one case.
Defense counsel requested acquittal
Boateng’s defense lawyers applied for an acquittal on Wednesday. They assumed that his ex-girlfriend invented and “instrumentalized” the allegations “in the fight for the children” and complained that their client had been prejudiced. Boateng is someone “who was actually convicted before he got up in the morning,” said his lawyer Peter Zuriel. “A prominent person cannot defend himself in the same way that a run-of-the-mill person would.”
His colleague Norman Nathan Gelbart spoke of alleged contradictions in Boateng’s ex-girlfriend’s statement: “In dubio pro reo.” Judge Forstner replied: “For us there are no dubious and therefore there is also nothing pro reo.”
Prosecutor: Incident “just the tip of the iceberg”
The public prosecutor had demanded a suspended sentence of one and a half years and an additional fine of 1.5 million euros. The incident was probably “just the tip of the iceberg,” said prosecutor Stefanie Eckert, speaking of a violent relationship between Boateng and his ex-partner.
Eckert also criticized the footballer’s defense. The prosecutor said his lawyers “threw dirt over the injured party” during the proceedings.
Boateng’s defense attorneys had emphasized before the pleadings that their client’s financial circumstances had changed. Advertising partners have terminated contracts with Boateng – for example for advertising glasses. That’s why he currently only has the income from Olympique Lyon, where he is under contract. That is a little more than 240,000 euros net per month, but that still includes maintenance costs for his three children. The lawyers calculated maintenance costs of 5,000 euros per month per child for Boateng’s eleven-year-old twin daughters alone.
