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Former Germany Defender Jérôme Boateng Given Suspended Fine For Assault
Former Germany defender, Jérôme Boateng, was handed a suspended fine and a warning after a Munich court on Friday found him guilty of premeditated bodily harm against his former partner.
Judge Susanne Hemmerich said there was not enough evidence to back the accusation the 2014 World Cup winner was a “notorious woman beater”.
She issued a warning and a conditional fine of 200,000 euros (£169,000), which will only be incurred if there are any new offenses.
Boateng’s ex-partner, the mother of his twins, accused him of assault and verbal abuse during a holiday in the Caribbean in 2018.
Boateng was found guilty in 2021 and fined 1.8 million euros (£1.5 million) in the first trial. His subsequent appeal to overturn the conviction was unsuccessful.
But in a third legal try, he won a bid for a retrial as the court agreed with Boateng’s legal team that one of its challenges for bias had been unfairly decided.
During the first trial, Boateng’s ex-partner told the court he had punched her, causing her to lose her breath for a moment during a heated argument.
The alleged incident happened in the weeks after the 2018 World Cup in Russia when Boateng was in the Germany squad which was knocked out in the group stage.
Boateng’s former partner described how he “pressed against my eye with his thumb, bit me in the head, and pulled me to the floor by my hair”. She said he repeatedly insulted her and hit her on the back with “one strong punch and several light punches”.
Defender, Boateng spent a decade with German giants Bayern Munich before joining France’s Lyon in 2021. The 35-year-old, who recently moved from Italy’s Salernitana to Austria’s LASK Linz, has denied injuring his ex-girlfriend.
Friday’s trial was the third in the bodily harm case.
State prosecutors, who had demanded a fine of €1.12 million, now have one week to decide whether to appeal the case to Bavaria’s top court, according to a spokesperson.
“I am immensely relieved that this nightmare that has lasted for years is now over,” Boateng said in a statement released by his media adviser.
“Now I want to concentrate on my family and football.”
