Fraud process against "Tatort" star Joe Bausch dropped
Created: 01/18/2022, 16:48
Joe Bausch (M), actor and doctor, comes to court with his lawyer Peter Wehn (l).
© Federico Gambarini/dpa
Distinctive head and furrowed face: Joe Bausch plays a coroner in Cologne's "Tatort".
In real life, Bausch was a prison doctor with an official residence.
That brought him to the dock on Tuesday.
Düsseldorf – The fraud process against “Tatort” actor and ex-prison doctor Joe Bausch (68) has been discontinued.
The Düsseldorf district court found on Tuesday that Bausch could not be proven to have the intent required for a conviction for fraud.
Bausch does not have a criminal record.
The public prosecutor's office had accused the 68-year-old of not having paid rent for his 180 square meter official apartment for six years.
Due to an error in the State Office for Salaries, Bausch had not been deducted the monthly amount of 801 euros from his salary since 2012.
As a civil servant, Bausch should have pointed out the error to the salary office.
A total of 57,672.72 euros was at stake over a period of 72 months.
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However, like his tax advisor, he simply did not notice that the amount was no longer deducted from him, said Bausch.
“2012 was a year in which I was busy with a lot of things: new book, readings, TV appearances, shooting.
I have to say that I earned a good amount of money during that time, and I paid attention to a lot of things - just not to that."
When asked critically by judge Uta Rolke, Bausch said: "I didn't notice it.
I didn't check the accounts because I thought everything would be fine with such a large agency.
Today I'm annoyed that I wasn't as meticulous about things as people expect me to be."
The mistake was only noticed because Bausch had written a letter in 2018 asking to be allowed to continue using the apartment as a pensioner.
The court imposed two conditions on Bausch on Tuesday: the 68-year-old must pay an outstanding amount of 9,700 euros and waive a tax refund of 16,600 euros.
The 68-year-old said after the hearing that he was happy that it was over after three years, even though he "rather grudgingly accepted" the decision.
"I did nothing wrong.
The people who helped cause it weren't sitting there."
Bausch was a prison doctor in Werl in Westphalia for 32 years.
Since 1997, the actor with the distinctive bald head has also played the forensic doctor Joseph Roth in Cologne's "Tatort".
dpa