The supermarket blackmailer from Lake Constance extended the appeal proceedings with applications - but in the end he was convicted. The court again decided on a long prison sentence.
Ravensburg (dpa) - The renewed trial against a supermarket blackmailer from Lake Constance ends with a long prison sentence: The district court Ravensburg sentenced the 56-year-old man to ten years and six months.
"The act was brutal, disgusting, perfidious and carried out with extremely high energy," said presiding judge Franz Bernhard in his reasoning for the judgment. She was driven by selfishness, greed and profit addiction by the man.
In his plea, the prosecutor previously demanded eleven years and eight months in prison for the accused. The 56-year-old's defense lawyer hadn't given a number, but had spoken out in favor of a punishment well under the prosecutor's demand. The new verdict is not yet final; the accused can appeal within a week.
It was the second time that the 56-year-old was on trial for extortion. In 2017, he placed several jars of baby food with a dangerous dose of poison in stores in Friedrichshafen and claimed 11.7 million euros from various retail companies. In 2018, the regional court sentenced him to twelve and a half years in prison for attempted murder in the act of attempted robbery and death. However, the Federal Supreme Court (BGH) partially overturned this judgment in 2019.
According to the BGH, the accused had warned of the poison, which is why there was no intention to kill. However, the man was guilty of attempting particularly severe predatory extortion. The 56-year-old confessed to the acts in which no one was injured. However, he dismissed the allegation of attempted murder and appealed after the verdict.
The 56-year-old said he was unaware of the extent of the crime at the time. "Let alone that I even thought about harming someone." He finds it difficult to find words for his deed and the horror about it increases every day. The judge did not, however, relieve him of the fact that the man had not essentially worked through the crime, and that there was no reflection on him.
The 56-year-old had tried all day to lengthen the process with applications. For example, he submitted applications for bias against the psychiatric assessor, an assessor and the presiding judge. He also rejected his public defender. In his plea, he said that his client was in the way of a narcissistic personality disorder attested by the expert. "He loses sight of reality and feels attacked by all kinds of things." The numerous applications for partiality are just one example.
