Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were on Wednesday sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax evasion, going against a prosecutor's call last month to have the pair acquitted.The designers were found guilty of €200 million worth of tax evasion, through the creation of a shell company in Luxembourg in 2004 and 2005.
Wednesday’s decision by Milan’s Court of Appeal upholds the guilty verdict of Dolce and Gabbana’s trial last year, reducing their prison sentences by two months.
The ruling goes against a call last month by Milan’s prosecutor general, Gaetano Santamaria, who said that the charges should be dropped as “the case is invalid”.
Santamaria said the earlier conviction went “against good sense” and that although the designers’ choice to create a Luxembourg firm may be frustrating for Italians, it does not mean the pair are lawbreakers.
Responding to today’s verdict, Dolce and Gabbana’s lawyer Massimo Dinoia said he was “speechless”.
“It’s a sentence that leaves me speechless. We will appeal to the [Court of] Cassation,” he was quoted in Il Sole 24 Ore as saying.
Under Italian law Dolce and Gabbana’s sentence cannot be carried out until it is confirmed by the Court of Cassation, the country’s highest court.
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