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Victims Johann-Conrad and Hiltrud Schäfer: "The rule of law was called into question here"
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Jörg Müller / DER SPIEGEL
The judge sounded like he was about to fall asleep as he read the sentence.
But the words he uttered were thunderous words, and his radically monotonous tone was supposed to suggest indifference.
He spoke of a "particularly serious case", of "astonishing criminal energy", of a "serious attack on the land register and the notarial system" and thus on the "foundations" of the legal system.
On that day, the chairman of the 3rd Major Criminal Chamber was also concerned with the big picture, touched by this monstrous case, which SPIEGEL and SPIEGEL TV recently reported in detail.
He hardly looked at the four defendants.
Then he announced the sentence in this six-month trial of real estate fraud in Berlin.
He sentenced Rabih and Mohamad Abou-Chaker, two brothers from the large Arab family of the same name, to four years and ten months in prison each for "fraud, forgery and indirect forgery."
The accused businessman and multiple criminal record holder Rainer Groß received the highest sentence of six years and nine months in prison.
Three and a half years were imposed on the accused lawyer Stefan G.
He had denied involvement in the crime until the end.
The real owners have no idea
This story, which is incredibly complex, can also be told very simply: Fraudsters hear about a large Berlin apartment building that belongs to an elderly Hamburg couple, Mr. and Mrs. Schäfer, and draw up a plan.
They forge their ID cards and signatures.
You have the fictitious sale certified by a notary and manage to deceive the land registry.
In September 2019 they finally succeed in registering themselves as the new owner in the land register, while the real owners have no idea of anything.
You almost managed to quickly resell the property for up to seven million euros.
"Make a clean table"
On the last day of the trial, the defendants were given the opportunity to have their last words. The Abou Chaker brothers, who recently made confessions, waived. The defendant Gross, who, in the opinion of the court, "steered the whole process comprehensively," made a remorseful speech.
He was happy to be able to "clear the table", he confessed to the crimes.
Struggling to keep his composure, he apologized "to the Schäfer couple", who "had caused grief and worry through my actions."
He tearfully declared, who, like the Abou-Chaker brothers, had been in custody since December last year, "had never been separated from his wife for so long", which felt "as if part of me had died" .
He asked for an open execution of the detention and to be allowed to spend the time leading up to the start of the sentence with his family.
The court later, unmoved, refused to do both.
The lawyer defended himself at times
In a long lecture, which was often incomprehensible because of the mumbling debate, the also accused lawyer Stefan G., who had defended himself in parts, made sometimes violent accusations to the investigators and the public prosecutor's office.
He accused her of having investigated his case "negligently and one-sidedly" and even spoke of "conviction criminal law."
He insisted that he did not know anything about the plan and that he had "been abused as a lawyer."
As a reminder: It was G. who acted as managing director of the specially founded "Voigtstrasse 41 Grundbesitz mbH", through which the supposed sale of the property was handled, and who, as the shepherd's representative without power of attorney, made the fictitious purchase agreement possible.
But before the verdict was pronounced, G. drafted the "taxi driver argument" to relieve himself: He described the fictitious case of a bank robber who, after the crime, allowed an unsuspecting taxi driver to drive him to the airport with his loot.
His contribution to the crime should not be assessed any differently, suggested lawyer G. and said: "I was lured into a trap."
He must expect further sanctions
The court did not agree.
In the grounds of the judgment, the chairman considered it to be proven "that G. was informed early on."
The four defendants followed a "common complex crime plan".
While G. presented himself as a "good faith tool" used by fraudsters, the judge, on the contrary, proceeded from his "bad faith".
With the three-and-a-half-year prison sentence, the court in the Gs case went well beyond the two-year probation required by the public prosecutor's office.
According to the judge, the criminal chamber even discussed whether the lawyer G. should be banned from practicing his profession, but did not see sufficient reason to do so.
The judge exacerbated the punishment by the fact that G. had "participated as a trained lawyer in the manipulation of the land register and the notarial system".
He therefore had to reckon with further sanctions elsewhere, "up to and including exclusion from the bar association."
More helpers for the great dizziness
Call to Johann-Conrad Schäfer and Hiltrud Marschner-Schäfer in Hamburg, the injured parties, both 80 years old, who have only been registered in the land register as the legal owners of their house in Friedrichshain since April of this year: They find the judgment "satisfactory". They had thought about traveling to Berlin for the judgment date in the court, but, according to Johann-Conrad Schäfer, "they were still too exhausted from the booster vaccination" they had just received.
In particular, the fact that the lawyer involved G. received an unexpectedly severe sentence is satisfaction for the trained lawyer Schäfer.
He now hopes that in further proceedings several separately prosecuted notaries and other helpers, without whom the fraud could not have succeeded, will still receive a penalty.
"The rule of law was called into question here," says Schäfer - that must be dealt with and cleared up.
The only ones among the defendants for whom this Monday was not just a bad day are the brothers Rabih and Mohamad Abou-Chaker.
Because they had provided clarification assistance in the context of a "deal" and made a confession, the judge was a little accommodating to them when it came to the sentence.
He also lifted her pre-trial detention in her case.
So the two of them are at large until the start of the sentence, and since their lawyers - like those of the other convicts - will presumably go on appeal, it may take some time before the verdict is final.
In the case of Rainer Groß, the court refused to lift his custody.
Plastic bags and a Lamborghini
In any case, a few hours after the end of the negotiations, at 2:45 p.m., the two brothers step out of the remand prison at the back of the regional court and onto the sidewalk, into freedom.
A camera team from SPIEGEL TV is already there.
The two, fully packed, carry their belongings in Aldi and other plastic bags in their hands.
They are picked up by members of their entourage in two cars, an Audi and an orange Lamborghini.
When everyone has got in, the Lamborghini howls and drives away.
