Italian bombshell SOPHIA LOREN, 79, is off the hook in decades-old Italo ice-cold criminal case. Sophia spent 17 days in jail nearly thirty years ago as her tax evasion appeal wend its slow-moving way through Italy’s lackadaisical justice system. The tax evasion charges from a 1974 tax return for the Oscar-winning beauty after declaring less income that year because her scanty payday on Vittorio De Sica’s The Voyage (Il viaggio) was deferred. Because of that, Sophia was in a lower tax bracket and paid only the taxes due taxes on 60 percent of her income when tax officials said she should have paid a 70-percent rate. Loren contested the ruling, avoiding her homeland from Italy for several years, but when she returned in 1982, she serviced 17 days of a 30-day jail term in a minimum security women’s prison. Her appeal has been inching through the Italian judicial system ever since, until the Supreme Court ruled this week that Loren’s filing was just and that she should have NEVER been jailed. Loren called it a “miracle of justice,” saying when “it seems there is no longer any hope it is still possible justice will be done.” Sophia’ lawyer, Giovanni Desideri was none too politic — calling the entire affair “Kafkaesque”.
SOPHIA LOREN WALKS IN CRIMINAL CASE
