Robson de Souza, popularly known as Robinho has been sentenced to 9 years imprisonment on appeal for gang-raping a drunk Albanian woman in Milan on 22 January 2013.
Robinho and 5 other men have been under investigation since 2014 for gang-raping the Albanian woman who was celebrating her 23rd birthday at a Milan nightclub in 2013 when the incident happened. Then, the Brazilian forward was playing for AC Milan.
The investigation lasted until Robinho left the Italian club to join Brazilian side Santos on loan. While the case was lingering, the Brazilian star left Milan permanently to join a Chinese football club, Guangzhou Evergrande.
It was when he was playing at a Brazilian side Clube Atlético Mineiro between 2016 and 2017 that an Italian court first found him guilty of being among the 6 people that gang-raped the Albanian woman.
Robinho did not accept the judgment and then decided to appeal it in an Italian appeal court. Since then, the court continued to hear the case until on Thursday, December 10, that the court upheld the 2017 judgment which sentenced the Brazilian forward and his accomplice to 9 years imprisonment.
Among the six defendants that were accused of gang-raping the drunk lady, only Robinho, and his friend Ricardo Falco, have been identified. The other four are yet to be identified, hence, the court has suspended the hearing of the four suspects until their identities are uncovered.
As part of their punishment for taking advantage of the drunk lady, Robinho and his friend were ordered to pay the woman damages of 60,000 euros. The judged slammed both of them with 9 years imprisonment rather than the 10 years the prosecutors asked for.
Even though the Italian appeal court ruled that Robinho was among the men that gang-raped the drunk woman, the footballer is still insisting that he wasn’t guilty.
As of the time of publishing this report, Robinho had not been forced into prison and his lawyers have not made an official statement about the ruling. Hence, the next move of the 36-year-old Brazilian football star is not known yet.
“This sentence is an example for the protection of women and shows that the system works, when necessary,” said the lawyer of the drunk Albanian woman, Jacopo Gnocchi, after the court ruling.
Before the Italian court upheld his 9 years sentence, Robinho just returned to Santos. Due to the court case, his new contract with the club had to be suspended indefinitely so that he could concentrate on the case.
Besides Santos and AC Milan, Robinho has played for Manchester City and Real Madrid. He enjoyed the best of his football career while at Real Madrid where he won two La Liga titles and one Supercopa; and while at AC Milan where he won one Serie A tutkemmm and one Supercoppa.
