Judge Markus Koppenleitner is a man who thinks quickly and talks as well. And the young woman who is crouching in the dock at the Munich I district court is in no way inferior to him. As soon as he has finished asking a question, the answer is already there: honest, relentless, witty. There is no question that Daniela G. is an extremely intelligent woman. And not necessarily the prototype of a drug-addicted cocaine dealer.
Daniela G. is 32 years old, speaks five languages, studied Russian and civil engineering, but dropped out of everything. A thick braid of brown hair falls onto her black blazer, the petite woman sits hunched over, her head bowed, but her mind is wide awake. Was it because the mother died too early or because she got the wrong friends, one always wonders how something like this can happen: When a young woman tells us that she has been taking substitute drugs since she was 18 because of her drug addiction – and more coke at that.
G. seemed jittery and nervous when she stood between platforms 16 and 17 at the main station on the day before Christmas 2022 and typed on her mobile phone. The woman therefore caught the eye of a police patrol. During the check, she seemed “fidgety, she spoke such choppy sentences into space without looking at anyone,” says a police officer in court. The effect of the last coke line was probably wearing off, “I have one, two, three Nasn zong on the train,” says the Austrian. The police found several more “noses” in quite unusual places on her: in the cap, in the sleeve, in the bra, in the shoes, in an amulet with a small bottle that she wore around her neck, and in a cheese roll.
Her lawyer Christian Gerber says she is “massively addicted to drugs and medication”. She drove from Innsbruck to Bremen and back to buy cocaine from “Gregor”. “Why are you going to Germany for this?” asks the judge. “Because I pay twice as much in Austria,” she replies. His client bought two-thirds of the amount for her own use and one-third for her acquaintance “Erwin”. A jackknife was found in her backpack, “for cutting coke cones, but also for sausage and cheese,” says Gerber. “That looks more like a stabbing to me,” says the judge.
“You have to be good at something”
Daniela G. started smoking weed when she was 15 or 16, and then everything happened very quickly. She was in a relationship with a coke dealer, injected the “snow” into her veins, took the opioid Substitol and benzos to calm her down. In 2019 she was imprisoned in Austria for dealing in coke and heroin. Barely two months out, the drug cycle started all over again. She says she never drank alcohol. “Why do you get along with alcohol but not with drugs?” Koppenleitner asks. She replies: “You have to be good at something.”
A psychiatrist in Austria saw her as having paranoid schizophrenia because she heard voices coming out of the wall. “To me that speaks more for a drug-induced psychosis,” says the psychiatric expert Friedrich Mohr. He could not identify any formal thought disorder.
Daniela G. was sentenced to six years and four months in prison for armed trafficking and possession of large quantities of drugs. This means that Koppenleitner’s sentence is even higher than the prosecutor’s office had requested. In addition, the court orders the placement in a rehabilitation center. However, once the verdict has become final, the public prosecutor’s office will decide whether Daniela G. will be extradited to Austria.