Steven J. looks quite contrite as he sits down in the dock in meeting room B166 of the Criminal Justice Center on Monday morning. This may be because the car dealer has already been in custody for some time and his defense lawyers have told him that he will have to expect a very long prison sentence if he is convicted of what the public prosecutor’s office has accused him of in their indictment. It’s about gang and commercial fraud in a variety of cases.
The alleged victim is a veterinarian. Steven J. and his wife Vanessa, who is in the dock but is at large, are said to have defrauded the 59-year-old of 669,000 euros between November 2016 and September 2021.
J’s mother was originally also a defendant. However, since the allegations against her have now expired, she no longer has to answer in the trial before the 10th criminal chamber at the Munich I Regional Court. In November 2016, 34-year-old Steven J., his mother and his wife Vanessa are said to have decided to get the veterinarian to hand over money to them.
According to a defense attorney, Steven J. and the veterinarian knew each other well because he bought his cars from the 34-year-old. According to the investigation, the veterinarian handed over amounts of up to 156,000 euros to J’s wife on Wasserburger Landstrasse. This amount is said to have been handed over at the beginning of August 2018. J’s mother and his wife Vanessa are said to have explained to the vet that they needed the money for an alleged “transfer” for Steven J. because he was imprisoned in Romania. Just two months later, the veterinarian is said to have given J’s wife 54,500 euros. The 30-year-old allegedly needed the money because her husband had violated registration requirements. Another time, the veterinarian paid alleged rent debts for Steven J., bank fees, notary fees or food for the two’s children. Why he did not question the requests for money remained unclear at the start of the trial. The doctor will be heard as a witness on one of the next days of the trial.
Steven J. and his wife have announced through their defense attorneys Hartmut Girshausen and Michael Pösl that they will make confessions. Since Steven J. faces up to eight years in prison if he is convicted with previous convictions, he wants to make amends for the damage and pay 300,000 euros. His wife announced through her defense attorney that she wanted to pay 100,000 euros in compensation for the damage. If the amounts are paid by the end of the trial, Steven J. can expect a prison sentence of between six years, three months and six years, four months. His wife could possibly get away with a two-month prison sentence, suspended.