BARCELONA, Spain — After claiming her innocence for over five years, music singer Shakira reached a last-minute bargain on the first day of her tax fraud trial in Barcelona to avoid prison.
On Monday, Shakira informed the presiding magistrate, José Manuel del Amo, that she accepted the arrangement with prosecutors. She said “yes” to affirm her admission to six counts of failing to pay the Spanish government 14.5 million euros (about $15.8 million) in taxes between 2012 and 2014.
Shakira will receive a three-year suspended sentence and a fine of 7.3 million euros ($8 million) under the terms of the agreement. In exchange for her sentence being commuted, she will pay another fine of 432,000 euros ($472,000). However, she now has it on her legal record that she was found guilty of tax fraud, which may have an impact on another current case with tax officials.
The trial, which would have included over 100 witnesses over the next few weeks, was called off after only eight minutes.
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Pop Star Shakira Reaches A Deal With Spanish Prosecutors On The First Day Of Tax Fraud Trial
Prosecutors announced in July that they will seek an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of 24 million euros ($26 million) for the singer, who has garnered admirers worldwide for her hits in Spanish and English in many musical genres.
Shakira stated in a statement released by her public relations office that she wanted to battle on but prioritized her family, career, and mental health.
“I have made the decision to finally resolve this matter with the best interest of my kids at heart who do not want to see their mom sacrifice her personal well-being in this fight,” she said in a statement. “I need to move past the stress and emotional toll of the last several years and focus on the things I love, my kids and all the opportunities to come in my career.”
The case turned on where Shakira, now 46, lived. Prosecutors in Barcelona claim that the Colombian singer spent more than half of that time in Spain and thus should have paid taxes on her worldwide income in the country, despite her official residency still being in the Bahamas. The Bahamas has substantially lower tax rates than Spain.
Pop Star Shakira Reaches A Deal With Spanish Prosecutors On The First Day Of Tax Fraud Trial
Before entering the courts, the multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner waved and kissed a small audience of onlookers. She momentarily sat in front of the panel of judges, flanked on one side by prosecutors and on the other by defense attorneys.
“This has been a difficult decision that took time to reach,” defense attorney Miriam Company told reporters. “Her legal team had prepared the trial and were convinced we could demonstrate her innocence, but the circumstances changed and (Shakira) opted to accept the deal.”
Shakira declined a plea bargain offered by prosecutors to resolve her case in July 2022, stating through her Spanish public relations firm Llorente y Cuenca that she “believes in her innocence and chooses to leave the issue in the hands of the law.” The specifics of that proposed transaction were not made public.
Shakira was implicated in the “Paradise Papers” revelations, which revealed the offshore tax arrangements of a number of high-profile figures, including Madonna and Bono of U2.
Shakira’s public relations firm earlier stated that she had paid off all of her debts and an additional 3 million euros (approximately $3.2 million) in interest.
Pop Star Shakira Reaches A Deal With Spanish Prosecutors On The First Day Of Tax Fraud Trial
The defense team for Shakira, Molins Defensa Penal in Barcelona, stated in November 2022 that she had not spent more than 60 days a year within the nation during the period in question, adding that she would have been required to spend half the year in Spain to be considered a fiscal resident. Her defense claimed that she was away from Barcelona for extended periods during a world tour in 2011 and later spent a significant amount of time in the United States as a jury member for the NBC television music talent show The Voice.
Prosecutors in Spain disagreed, and the investigating judge, Marco Juberas, stated in 2021 that at the end of a three-year investigation into the charges, he found “sufficient evidence of criminality” for the case to go to trial. When Juberas questioned Shakira in 2019, she proclaimed her innocence.
Last year, she lost an attempt to have the lawsuit dismissed.
According to her defense team, Shakira established her fiscal residency in Spain in 2014; at the same time, her oldest child was enrolled in school in Barcelona to spend more time in the nation with her family.
In Spain, an investigating judge conducts an initial investigation before deciding whether the matter should be dismissed or tried.
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However, her problems with Spain’s tax authorities are far from ended.
Separately, Spanish state prosecutors prosecuted Shakira in September with alleged tax cheating of 6.7 million euros on her 2018 earnings. They accused her of evading taxes by forming an offshore corporation in a tax haven.
Over the last decade, Spain has cracked down on sports players such as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo for failing to pay their full taxes. The former Barcelona and Real Madrid players were found guilty of evasion, but their penalties were suspended. Thus, they escaped prison time.
Shakira, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, has two children with Barcelona soccer player Gerard Piqué, Milan and Sasha. The pair lived together in Barcelona for 11 years until calling it quits last year. She has lived in Miami since then.
After winning Thursday’s Latin Grammy Awards gala in Seville, Shakira praised her Spanish followers for “being with me in the good times and the bad.”
SOURCE – (AP)
