Lawyer: "She doesn't steal because she needs to.
She wants to punish herself.”
Created: 08/01/2023, 18:00
By: Rudi Stallein
Shoplifting is not a petty offence.
(Symbol photo © HighwayStarz/Imago
A project manager was fined €7,500 for shoplifting.
She already has 16 relevant criminal records.
Geretsried/Wolfratshausen – If a day doesn't go the way she imagines, she steals.
And if you believe the woman, she does it with the intention of getting caught.
Like a little over a year ago in a Geretsried electronics store - for which she was recently sentenced to a fine of 7,500 euros (150 daily rates) by the district court in Wolfratshausen.
Wolfratshausen district court: project manager compulsively commits shoplifting
At around 10 a.m. on December 17, 2021, the 54-year-old mother had plugged in speakers, headphones and a charger with a total value of almost 540 euros in the Geretsried store.
She acted so conspicuously that she had to be caught.
"I tucked it in the back of my pants, under my coat," the woman said.
"But I wasn't sure if the salespeople had noticed me, so I took the other things with me." Her defense attorney cited obsessive-compulsive disorder as the reason for this.
"She doesn't steal because she needs to.
She wants to punish herself.” He has experience with this because, according to his own statements, he has accompanied the woman as a lawyer since she first appeared before a court in Munich in 2003.
At that time it was her eighth trial for theft,
Now she endured trial number 17.
"If you give me a fine, I've already punished myself," the accused told the judge.
She knows "that something really ensues" when she steals, but she doesn't know how to get out of the matter once it has been set in motion.
“At that moment I have to go through the misery.
The head can no longer be caught,” the woman explained.
It's like a compulsion: "I have to steal now and get caught." The impulse to do so is often given by a stressful situation that ends with blaming herself, blaming herself for something.
That morning, for example, it was her children's problems at school that made her head for the electronics store.
The accused claimed that she had already consulted many therapists.
"But no one had any idea
"It's never about harming others."
He, too, keeps asking himself how his client can be helped, the defense attorney explained in his pleading.
So far he has not been able to give himself a satisfactory answer.
“It's never about harming others;
it's not about enrichment," emphasized the lawyer.
"The only enrichment is the appointment here."
Judge Helmut Berger followed the prosecutor's request and sentenced the project manager to 150 daily rates of 50 euros each (7,500 euros in total).
The accused protested that the whole thing was "so uncomfortable and so embarrassing" and accepted the verdict.
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All sorts of curious and funny quotes: You could hear them again in the Wolfratshausen district court in 2022. An overview from our court reporter.
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