District judges sometimes have to deal with unusual questions. For example: Is touching the lady during a lap dance in a strip club part of it? The judge googles it, the prosecutor shrugs her shoulders. But the answer is the same. Mario F. has already confessed to groping and choking a dancer in a Munich club against her will. For this he is sentenced to a suspended prison sentence of one and a half years.
The story takes place in a table dance bar in the Bahnhofsviertel, and also at Oktoberfest time. Mario F. will not comment in the trial, and so it remains speculation whether the Croatian only traveled to the Oktoberfest with his brother. In any case, on September 20, 2022, the machine technician was already drunk with around one per mille of alcohol in his blood when he headed for the strip club around midnight.
According to the indictment, the brother is said to have translated for Mario F. in the nightclub. The 39-year-old wanted sex, and with a very specific dancer. The lady made it clear that there were no sexual services and that she was only offering a lap dance. The indictment also states that she said unequivocally that touching would only be possible with her permission – and that he should refrain from doing so. The man paid 60 euros and they went into the private room.
Mario F. confessed through his lawyer that the dance was not at all according to the woman’s wishes. The drunk groped the dancer and even bit her buttocks. The woman screamed loudly: “No, no, no, no!” and gestured to Mario F. that he shouldn’t touch her. Mario F. laughed and sat back down in his seat. The dancer thought that the man now understood her and continued. But the opposite was the case: Mario F. jumped up, grabbed the woman by the neck, pushed her against the wall and reached under her clothing.
The dancer called for help, other club employees heard this and called a security man. The dancer was “very upset” and was crying, he said in court. He couldn’t remember any further. “I’m constantly kicking out people who want to touch the women.” He doesn’t even know what exactly is done or allowed in the private rooms. He only helped out there during Oktoberfest.
The injured party herself is apparently at home all over the world: the Austrian-born woman danced during the Oktoberfest in Munich, lives in London and currently lives on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. She is said to have explained via email that she had no money for the flight to Munich, that the matter was stressful for her, and that her family didn’t know anything about her “job.” She is said not to have responded to offers of help or the suggestion of an advance payment from the authorities.
After a legal discussion between everyone involved in the process, Mario F. confesses to the attacks. The judge sentenced him to a suspended prison sentence for sexual assault and intentional bodily harm, “in exceptional cases that might be enough to deter him from further crimes.” The public prosecutor says in her plea that it is unclear whether a woman can be touched during a lap dance. But that doesn’t matter anyway: “What matters is whether she wanted to be touched. And she said no several times.”