A bodyguard who, among other things, protected the “Terminator” at the Wiesn is on trial. He is accused of evading taxes worth millions.
When the “Terminator” was in town, his German bodyguard couldn’t be missing: Fabian P. flanked Hollywood star Arnold Schwarzenegger when he mingled with the people at the Oktoberfest. Prominent contacts can also be seen on the 36-year-old’s social media channels: photos with Elyas M’Barek or selfies with the terribly glamorous millionaire family Geissen. The appearance of the bodyguard before the 6th Economic Criminal Court at the Munich I District Court on Friday was less pretentious: Fabian P. is said to have evaded taxes amounting to millions as a self-employed security guard for years. And one thing is already certain: the celebrity protector will go to prison for several years, partly because he still has a suspended sentence in another matter.
“He confessed to everything,” says Werner Siebers, Fabian P’s defense attorney. There had been talks with the chamber beforehand, according to which his client would agree to a four to five-year prison sentence if he made a confession. Also in the dock is Marcel M., a friend of P., who, according to his lawyer Peter Schneider, is only said to have made his name and account available for the illegal activities.
The bodyguard, who comes from Saxony-Anhalt, set up his own event and security company in Munich in 2007. From 2012 to 2016 he founded another security company – albeit using the data of his friend M. The public prosecutor assumes that P. was in fact the sole operator of the second company. He alone is said to have made all the decisions and to have appeared to business partners as the owner of the sole proprietorship. From 2012 to 2016, P. is said not to have submitted a tax return and also written fictitious invoices from one company to the other. Overall, Fabian P. is said to have cheated the tax authorities by more than one million euros.
Fabian P., a stocky bald man, listens quietly as the judge reads out his almost 20 entries from the federal central register. From assault to drunk driving, everything is included. A conviction from 2018 is particularly interesting for the court: P. was sentenced to two years and ten months in prison by the Munich district court because he had illegally acquired an Uzi submachine gun and four other pistols, including a Glock and a Walther . He had stored or buried the weapons in his holiday home in the Harz Mountains. On appeal, the sentence was reduced to two years and two months and suspended until 2023.
This means that the old conviction for the weapon violations is added to the sentence that Fabian P. can expect due to his alleged tax evasion. At the beginning of September, the 6th Criminal Court intends to pass a verdict. Should the “Terminator” show up again for the Wiesn, another bodyguard with a button in his ear will certainly be at his side.