The former treasurer of the Fondation Beyeler, who is accused of diverting CHF 986,126 into his own coffers, has been found guilty in court. She is accused of multiple embezzlement and commercial money laundering. The 54-year-old was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison. She also receives a fine of 45 daily rates of 70 francs. She owes the Fondation Beyeler CHF 849,000 in damages.
The three-person court, chaired by Marcia Stucki, judged the case in two parts. The first phase was the time since the introduction of the new checkout system at the Fondation Beyeler in autumn 2018. Because the cancellations then struck a checkout clerk as conspicuous – they were not in his handwriting, although his name was on it – they were scrutinized.
In the eyes of the court, it is clear that the woman signed documents in her own handwriting that allegedly came from her employees. “You don’t have to be a graphologist to recognize your handwriting,” said Stucki during the verdict. The testimonies of the witnesses on Wednesday in court are credible, according to the court president. In addition, there is video surveillance from May 2019, which proves that the convict was always alone in the ticket office when a cancellation was made.
She is said to have siphoned off money when selling tickets
According to Stucki, the other, much longer phase began five months after the convict had started working for ISS Facility Services AG at the Fondation Beyeler. From the beginning of August 2008, she began diverting funds from the sale of tickets into her own cash register. This phase until autumn 2018 could not be clearly proven to the woman. This is where prosecutorial scrutiny of their account history comes into play. With great effort – according to the court – they tabulated which funds were received and when. And compared to that the references. In its deliberations, the court went to the trouble of randomly comparing different months. Here, too, a pattern was clearly recognizable: when the woman was on vacation, no cash was paid in. Deposits were only made on days she worked – or if she had worked the day before.
What the court or the public prosecutor’s office also checked: Were there such cash deposits in the three to four-digit range before employment at the foundation – or after the release. The answer no. “They went back drastically,” says Stucki. In the eyes of the court, it was therefore clear that the convict also stole money in this phase. The sentence is now even a month higher than demanded by the public prosecutor.