Robinho’s rape case, Milan Appeal Court confirms 9-year sentence

The Criminal Court of Appeal of Milan has confirmed the sentence to 9-year in prison for the former AC Milan and Santos football player Robinho in relation to a rape occurred in 2013 in Milan.

In Italy, Robinho is probably only remembered by AC Milan fans, as he won the Scudetto in the 2010-2011 season, the last one won by the Italian football team. However, in Brazil everyone knows Robson De Souza “Robinho”, 36-year-old, after being banned by Santos for the trial in Milan that cost him a nine-year sentence for raping an Albanian girl with a group of friends and the publication on Brazilian newspapers of the related crude wiretaps’ recordings.

We have already posted an article in relation to the shocking wiretaps of Robinho few weeks ago. The evidence was clear and the football himself at the phone with a friend did not deny having committed a group sexual assault on the young Albanian girl. As a result of that evidence, the judges of the second criminal section of the Court of Appeal of Milan, in fact, confirmed the sentence for group sexual assault imposed in first instance on Robinho and Ricardo Falco in November 2017, as requested by the deputy prosecutor Cuno Tarfusser. At this point, according to the Italian legal system, Robinho can only try to appeal to the Supreme Court of Italy despite the chances of amending the sentence are extremely low. In case Robinho should give up his fight or the Supreme Court reject the case, Robinho will have no other choices than to surrender, been extradited and be detained.

On 22 January 2013, the Albanian girl was with some friends at the Sio Café in Milan to celebrate her birthday. Robinho was also there with his wife and at least five friends. During the evening, the Brazilian footballer went out to accompany his wife home and then came back to join his friends, who were joined by the 23-year-old Albanian girl who already knew Robinho.
Amidst laughter and alcohol, the young woman got drunk, or rather, as prosecutor Stefano Ammendola claimed in the first instance, she was made drunk by the men who offered her several drinks with the intent of making her “unconscious and unable to resist”. The group then took her to the club’s cloakroom where they gang-raped her without her being able to resist due to her psychophysical condition compromised by alcohol. The rape was allegedly started by Robinho, followed by his friend Ricardo Falco, 38 years old, and then by the other four men – never identified – who had been watching. Robinho went to the prosecutor’s office where he was interrogated, but sometime later left Italy to return to play in Brazil with Santos.

The first instance judges wrote in the sentence that the wiretapping made during the investigations revealed the ‘absolute contempt’ shown by the defendants towards the young girl through epithets and insults that were “crude and contemptuous, unequivocal signs of unscrupulousness and almost an awareness of future impunity”. During the appeal process, the defendant produced four technical reports on the psycho-physical conditions of the young victim, also attaching photographs downloaded from the Internet, to argue that the young Albanian was addicted to alcohol. The lawyer of the victim said that this is an example for the protection of women and the reliability of the legal system. The victim joined also the civil action obtaining a compensation of 60,000 euros to be paid by the two convicts. The case has become topical again in Brazil after the wiretaps that were in the files were recently published.

While Robinho continued to deny any responsibility in the violence, Damares Alves, Brazilian Minister of Human and Family Rights, asked for the Italian authorities to proceed against Robinho and to incarcerate him immediately.