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Alfons Schuhbeck (end of October in the District Court of Munich I)
Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE / AFP
Star chef Alfons Schuhbeck, convicted of tax evasion in the millions, has exchanged his lawyers.
It also became known: The 73-year-old wants to hold on to the appeal against his verdict.
The two previous defense attorneys "ended the mandate by mutual agreement and are no longer working for Mr. Schuhbeck," said Schuhbeck's spokesman Peter Dietlmaier on Friday.
Schuhbeck decided "that the appeal against the judgment of the Munich I Regional Court should be continued".
At the end of October 2022, the court sentenced Schuhbeck to three years and two months in prison for tax evasion in the millions.
On the other hand, the restaurateur had lodged an appeal and announced that he might withdraw it as soon as he had examined the written reasons for the judgment.
According to the court, the deadline for justifying the appeal expired on Friday.
Efforts to "repair the full amount of damage"
According to Dietlmaier, Schuhbeck's new lawyer is Ali B. Norouzi from Berlin.
"Unaffected by the decision to continue the revision are Mr. Schuhbeck's efforts to fully compensate for the damage," the statement said.
On the day he was sentenced, Schuhbeck and his lawyers had tried in vain to get money from an anonymous investor to pay for the damage and thus obtain a lighter sentence.
There was talk of 2.5 million euros.
However, the District Court of Munich I accused the cook of not having taken any other steps apart from seeking outside help to pay off the tax burden.
So Schuhbeck only paid 150 euros to the cash register until the verdict.
A repayment of the tax liability should have been taken into account as a mitigating penalty.
The court saw it as proven that Schuhbeck is said to have evaded around 2.3 million euros in tax money between 2009 and 2015 - and sentenced him to three years and two months in prison.
In addition, the 73-year-old is to pay back around 1.2 million euros in income tax that has not been paid.
According to the verdict, Schuhbeck had manipulated the cash registers in his two Munich restaurants for years and thus failed to post more than five million euros in sales.
wit/dpa
