A confession in the seemingly endless Regensburg corruption scandal – Bavaria

Joachim Wolbergs, 51, is only a spectator this Wednesday, but of course it’s also about him in Room B 173 of the Munich Criminal Justice Center. He’s sitting in the back row, in an anorak, in a room that looks as if no piece of furniture has been moved since the 1970s. Green doors, orange chair covers, brown carpeting. Volker Tretzel, 80, is not here as a spectator. He’s the accused again. Rimless glasses, clean parting and tie, everything as usual. All? He had donated almost 436,000 euros in order to secure “a certain amount of goodwill” with the Wolbergs, Tretzel has his lawyer read out. That is new.

Exactly 2,416 days after the investigation became known, 1,303 days after the first verdict and 448 days after its annulment, there is still a confession in the seemingly endless Regensburg corruption scandal. “These seven years were terrible,” says Tretzel, who had always denied all allegations against him in those seven years. Now Tretzel says he “made mistakes” and “I regret it all very much”. The question now is: What does his confession bring him? And what does this confession mean for Wolbergs, who to this day has denied any guilt? To anticipate: This Wednesday in Munich is not a good day for Regensburg’s former mayor.

The public prosecutor once called Tretzel Wolbergs’ “personal patron” who “bought” the mayor’s favor. A Regensburg judge didn’t see it that differently. She found Tretzel guilty in the summer of 2019 for granting benefits, ten months in prison on probation. Wolbergs was also convicted for accepting an advantage, but he was not fined. Lawyers thought it was scandalous. The fact that the same judge, who had just found two men guilty of corruption offenses, then said that it was “excessive” to speak of a corruption affair did not make matters any better. In November 2021, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) largely overturned the alleged scandal judgment. Too mild, it was said, which is one of the reasons why renegotiations are now underway.

This Wednesday it is Tretzel’s turn, the separate trial against Wolbergs has not yet been scheduled. Tretzel doesn’t call it that, but in his statement he admits it’s a pure straw man system. Between 2011 and 2016, money had repeatedly flowed into the account of the small SPD local association in the south of the city, of which Wolbergs was chairman. Sometimes employees of Tretzel’s company donated, sometimes his mother-in-law, sometimes he himself. The individual amounts were just under 10,000 euros and thus below the publication limit specified in the party law. A cover-up strategy, the donations flowed in secret. Nobody could have guessed that a building contractor was trying to influence Wolbergs, who was initially third mayor in Regensburg and was elected mayor in the 2014 local elections.

Tretzel knew what he was doing, he makes that clear in his confession. And Wolberg’s? If you didn’t know, the Regensburg judge saw it, and the BGH overturned her judgment. He therefore lacked “the insight to do wrong”, which is why there was no punishment. The judge ruled that Wolbergs did not know that straw men were donating to him. He made it credible that he “didn’t think it was possible either”. For real? In Tretzel’s confession it sounds completely different. After Wolbergs approached him in 2011 to ask for donations, he told him “that I would spread my donations over several years and several people, also to stay below the limit of 10,000 euros per year.”

Wolbergs’ lawyer spoke of a “dirty deal”

Before Tretzel’s confession, which could incriminate Wolbergs, there was a so-called legal talk between the criminal court, the public prosecutor’s office and defense attorneys. Or, as Wolberg’s lawyer Peter Witting said before the trial: a “dirty deal.” In any case, this Wednesday, judge Petra Wittmann is promising the contractor a lower sentence if he confesses. In this case, she could imagine a suspended sentence of up to one year and nine months, plus a fine of up to 320,000 euros. This suits multimillionaire Tretzel, who according to his defense is “very interested in a mutually agreeable solution because of his age” – and certainly also in avoiding imprisonment at the age of 80.

At a press conference in January, Wolbergs said “I would never deal”. From the point of view of his lawyer, the ex-OB is being denied a fair trial, if only because the two cases against Tretzel and Wolbergs are being negotiated separately. He would have wished that there would be a trial against both accused. “You don’t separate the procedures like that,” said Wolbergs. The chamber in turn justifies the separation with the fact that the Federal Constitutional Court has not yet decided on a complaint from the Wolbergs. On the one hand, this complaint is intended to clarify fundamental questions of party financing and the associated admissibility of party donations. On the other hand, the ex-OB wants to have the judgment reviewed in another trial, in which he was sentenced to a suspended sentence by the Regensburg district court in 2020 for bribery, which is now legally binding.

On Wednesday, at the Munich Criminal Justice Center, it is also about two condominiums that Wolbergs’ mother and his mother-in-law bought from Tretzel’s company – with discounts of around 50,000 euros each. A common estate that he didn’t talk to the Wolbergs about, Tretzel says. In these cases, neither the contractor nor a co-defendant Tretzel employee incriminate the ex-OB. In addition, says Tretzel, his donations were “never aimed at a specific official act by Mr. Wolberg,” such as his influence on the allocation of a piece of municipal property to his company.

The proceedings against Volker Tretzel will continue this Thursday.

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