He actually made a confession months ago and made a deal with the public prosecutor’s office – but the trial against former MDR entertainment boss Udo Foht continues in Leipzig. The 72-year-old is accused of fraud, breach of trust, bribery and tax evasion. And the court has decided to work through the case in detail.
In his influential function, Foht played a key role in shaping hit shows until 2011 and was considered a sponsor of stars like Florian Silbereisen and Helene Fischer. At the same time, he is said to have repeatedly begged larger loans – up to five-digit amounts – from music managers and production companies. Shortly after the trial began, Foht admitted that he consciously risked not being able to repay the money on time. The public prosecutor’s office promised him a suspended sentence of between twelve and 21 months for this confession. From the point of view of the criminal court, however, there were still open questions, they invited numerous witnesses, including MDR director Carola Wille. On Friday, the officially last witness was invited: the former river boat-Moderator Carsten Weidling.
Weidling, 56 and son of the GDR television man OF Weidling, currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Before making his statement, he had already uploaded a video to Facebook in which he was sitting at the airport, thanking the Saxon judiciary “for the fairly comfortable flight” home and the hotel that had been paid for. In fact, Weidling is a kind of key figure in the Causa Foht for the court. Many of the charges relate to the television format We are everywhere, which Weidling wanted to develop with Foht’s support. Weidling traveled the world as a freelance reporter to visit East German emigrants. According to Foht, he had repeatedly begged for money for this documentary series. According to the indictment, most of the money ended up with the company “Just for fun”, where Weidling was employed.
The public prosecutor assumes blackmail
Weidling testified in court that Foht and he wanted to form a kind of think tank to advance the MDR program. He was “the creative one” who didn’t really care about the concrete cash flows. For several years he had not had a written contract for his work as an author. Foht always put him off, but he continued to work. “The basic assumption was that we would develop something and Foht would find a way to implement it at MDR with the help of a production company.”
However, the court has emails from Weidling to Foht in a sharp tone. The public prosecutor’s office therefore assumes blackmail. Weidling is accused of this. His trial is scheduled to begin on April 19, also at the Leipzig Regional Court. In the witness stand, Weidling now said that he did not want to blackmail Udo Foht. It probably “got through” with him when he wrote it – he had already apologized for the emails and apologize again. If his own trial begins as planned in April, he will also face it.
The trial against Udo Foht, on the other hand, could end soon: the public prosecutor and the defense are expected to hold their pleas in the coming week.
With material from dpa and epd