NHL Legend And Stanley Cup Champion Esa Tikkanen Has Just Been Sentenced To Suspended Jail Time
Esa Tikkanen, known for lifting the Stanley Cup with the Oilers and Rangers as one of their legendary players, has been sentenced to one year of suspended jail time.
District Court of Western Uusimaa sentenced former NHL star Esa Tikkanen to one year of suspended imprisonment for aggravated tax fraud.
Once hailed as one of hockey's most versatile and tenacious forwards, serious legal problems now beset Esa Tikkanen because he did not file notices with Finnish tax authorities of an income in substantial amount.
It would appear that for the years 2014-2018, Tikkanen did not report about 410,000 euros of his income derived from abroad. Of the mentioned sum, more than 165,000 euros of taxes were managed to be evaded by him.
While the hockey star categorically denied any accusations of a criminal nature, he acknowledged his failure to declare his income in due time.
What is more, Tikkanen claimed his failure to do this was not intentional but an oversight, not evasion.
The defendant, Tikkanen, had, however, stated in his defense that once this anomaly had been ascertained, he acted to the extent of making efforts to regularize the situation and began to pay his overdue taxes.
Nevertheless, the court rejected his arguments on the ground that such omission to declare income for so many successive years constituted serious fraud and, therefore could not be punished with a mere suspended sentence.
The hockey career of Esa Tikkanen smells like a fairytale. A star of his era, Tikkanen won five Stanley Cup championships during his time in the NHL. Those, of course, came with the Edmonton Oilers dynasty of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Many times he played a hard-nosed style of game and became an irritant to the opposing team. He had to be there whenever any kind of play was happening.
The suspended sentence saves Tikkanen from serving the time as long as he meets his conditions but outlines a very important fact: financial transparency is a doctrine everybody is supposed to abide by, whether enjoying an exalted position in the world of sports or not.
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