In the manager’s office in the Miesbach district office, there is a light, wooden built-in cupboard that hides a sink and fittings. The district administrator – it is now the next but one – can wash his hands there. The cupboard and the rest of the furniture was installed in the era of the CSU District Administrator Jakob Kreidl, and all of this was paid for by the local district savings bank, whose administrative board Kreidl himself chaired by virtue of office.
Because the savings bank had otherwise invested in all kinds of luxurious trips by the board of directors, in lavish birthday parties and in some quite bizarre gifts for a wide variety of local politicians, Kreidl was sentenced in 2019 by the Munich II Regional Court to eleven months of imprisonment for breach of trust, the long-standing chairman of the board Bank, Georg Bromme, received a year and a half probation.
That was too much for Bromme, the public prosecutor found both sentences too low – and both sides achieved partial success in the appeal proceedings before the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe last year. Therefore, the District Court of Munich II will soon be on the train again. The trial, which is initially scheduled to last ten days, is scheduled to begin on March 22nd, so a new verdict could be made in mid-May.
Kreidl had to vacate his office in 2014. The whole Sparkasse affair, which ignited at the celebration of his 60th birthday in 2012, which cost almost 120,000 euros and was largely paid for by the Sparkasse, finally cost him his re-election.
This celebration later played no major role in court, and the district court did not initially consider the sponsorship of his office equipment to be a punishable offense. However, the public prosecutor’s office and ultimately also the BGH did, so that another criminal division of the regional court has to deal with this office furniture again.
The Federal Court of Justice also wanted the Sparkasse’s expensive Christmas gifts to be punished for their own board members and for a number of local politicians from the administrative board. However, the last instance did not see it as punishable that the savings bank had also paid for the final dinner after some district council meetings organized by Kreidl.
However, the majority of the 2019 judgment was also valid in Karlsruhe, which is why the district court no longer has to deal with the quite luxurious trips made by the board of directors to Austria and Switzerland, including the accompanying program and sometimes five-digit wine bills, and there is no doubt about one either renewed conviction for breach of trust. Only the amount of the sentence and the 200 or 300 hours of community service that Kreidl and Bromme should do for the suspension of their prison sentences are in question.
The public prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe was also unsuccessful with their application to convict Kreidl and Bromme for accepting and granting advantages. The only punishment for a corruption offense received in the whole affair was a former mayor of Holzkirchner. He had accepted a six-month suspended prison sentence for bribery for a million-dollar real estate deal between the community and the savings bank, without Bromme then being sentenced accordingly for bribery.