Footballer Dani Alves has been jailed for four and a half years after being convicted of raping a woman in a Spanish nightclub.
On Thursday, the former Brazil international was found guilty of sexually assaulting a woman in the bathroom of a chic nightclub in Barcelona on December 31, 2022.
The 40-year-old father of two has been on remand at Brians 2 prison near the Catalan capital since his arrest in January last year and is now facing his first night behind bars as a convicted sex offender.
According to MARCAAlves will also share prison with a Brazilian known as Coutinho, who was a bodyguard to former Barcelona player Ronaldinho and was convicted of sexual assault.
The Brians 2 prison is the same facility where antivirus software pioneer John McAfee was held before his eventual death in 2021.
Former Barcelona defender Dani Alves has been sentenced to four years and six months in prison after being found guilty of rape
The 40-year-old is in pre-trial detention in Brians 2 prison near the Catalan capital
The Brians 2 prison complex was built in 2007 to reduce prison overcrowding
The Brians 2 prison complex, seen from above, also housed the mastermind behind one of the country’s biggest schemes, as well as a former president of Barcelona
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McAfee was facing 10 charges of tax evasion in Tennessee and seven charges of fraud and money laundering in New York when he was found dead in a Spanish prison.
The prison, where McAfee was sent in October 2020 after he was caught traveling through an airport in Barcelona, is an angular, cement, low-slung complex with a green roof, according to photos.
Photos show the bare interior, the empty halls and the simplistic layout of the institute, which Alves will have to become familiar with over the next four and a half years.
McAfee had likened Brians 2 to “the Hilton” compared to American prisons. Yet he still complained about the food in tweets he posted at the time.
Just weeks after McAfee’s arrest, Spanish newspaper El Diario reported that McAfee was impressed by the structure of the country’s criminal justice system and compared it to a five-star hotel in the US, according to a letter he wrote to his wife.
“Life in Spanish prisons is like the Hilton compared to the vile surrealism and dehumanization of American prisons,” he wrote. ‘Here I am treated as a person instead of a number.’
With a capacity for 1,500 prisoners, the prison opened in 2007 as the Ministry of Justice tackled overcrowding in other prisons.
Antivirus software pioneer John McAfee was held in the same prison before his death in 2021
lves will also share the prison with a Brazilian known as Coutinho, who was a bodyguard for former Barcelona player Ronaldinho (pictured)
McAfee appeared via videoconference during his extradition hearing at the Audiencia Nacional court in Madrid, Spain
McAfee said before his death that the Spanish prison where he stayed was a luxury hotel compared to American prisons
There have also been examples of prison violence, including a brutal murder of inmates shortly before McAfee was arrested.
The victim, who was jailed for forcing minors and disabled people to perform sex work and gender violence, was listening to music on an MP3 player when the prisoner overpowered him and stabbed him 29 times in his neck, chest and stomach.
In April 2020, a 27-year-old man, who had been diagnosed with mental health problems, apparently suffered a manic attack and attacked prisoners and prison staff before being restrained by prison guards.
The inmate, who was serving a 32-month prison sentence for theft and gender violence, was immobilized by corrections staff and stopped breathing.
The inmate stopped breathing at one point and was pronounced dead by paramedics.
Former Barcelona president Sandro Rosell, who was arrested for money laundering before being acquitted by a court due to lack of evidence, spent part of his 20-month prison stay in Brians 2.
And Fèlix Millet, the former president of the Palau de la Música concert hall in Barcelona, who was the mastermind behind one of the biggest schemes that raised 23 million euros, served a prison sentence of nine years and eight months in Brians 2. He died of a stroke in March 2023, at the age of 87.
Alves, meanwhile, protested his innocence on February 7 after taking the stand on the final day of his three-day trial at the provincial court of Audiencia in Barcelona.
Prosecutors had pushed for a 12-year prison sentence for the 40-year-old Brazilian after he was convicted in 2022 of raping a woman in a Spanish nightclub.
Dani Alves’ family leaves court earlier this month during the trial – including ex-wife Joana Sanz (center left) and mother Lucia (center right
He admitted having sex in a toilet at Barcelona’s swanky Sutton nightclub with his 23-year-old female accuser on December 30, 2022, but insisted it was consensual.
The woman he was found guilty of raping today confirmed that Alves forced himself on her when she gave her testimony in court behind her screen.
A friend who was with her the night of the rape broke down in tears as she recalled the victim “crying uncontrollably” after leaving the small bathroom where the incident took place.
State prosecutors had sought a nine-year prison sentence if Alves was convicted, and a private prosecutor acting on behalf of the victim sought a 12-year prison sentence at his trial.