Stephan herbert fuchs
His illness had ruined everything for him. Nevertheless, the local court has sentenced a 33-year-old man to a fine of 2400 euros for fraud. The bayreuth native had dropped out of training as an occupational therapist, but still received bafog benefits for three quarters of a year.This caused a damage of more than 4500 euro.
Evidence shows that the defendant was suffering from a depressive disorder at the time of the crime. "He just stuck his head in the sand", said his defense lawyer jurgen koch from bayreuth. At that time, his client had not been able to get anything done and had been completely inhibited. In addition, the defendant had to cope with the separation from his wife shortly before and the bafog benefits were his only income.
At the time, he had still announced his training contract with the vocational school for occupational therapy, but he did not make any representations to the district administration office in kulmbach. The responsible clerk had only found out about it by pure chance. The woman used to live in the same place as the defendant. "Over a thousand corners" they had received the information that the man was no longer attending the vocational school.
A call to the school confirmed this suspicion, said the administrative assistant. However, she also said that the school had normally had the obligation to report the notice.
Part paid back
The school principal could not explain why this had not been done, although he knew about the defendant's illness and had already noticed the many absences. If the employee of the district office had not been suspicious, the fraud would probably not have been discovered.
The defendant has already paid back around 1400 euros. He also undertook to continue paying 200 euros a month until the unjustly received sum had been repaid. However, neither the public prosecutor's office nor the court agreed to a discontinuation of the proceedings, which was suggested by the defense attorney. After all, this is not a "small amount of money", which, moreover, had been taken over the long period of nine months, according to judge sieglinde tettmann.
The representative of the public prosecutor's office saw the seriousness of the defendant's situation, but demanded an even higher penalty of 2700 euros (90 daily sentences of 30 euros each) than was ultimately imposed. Defense attorney koch, on the other hand, pleaded for a much lower fine of 1200 euros (60 daily rates of 20 euros each). His client was in good health, had admitted everything from the start and had also regained his footing professionally.
At the bottom
Due to the long period of the crime and the high damage, judge tettmann then sentenced her to 80 daily rates of 30 euros each. The defendant had of course known that he had to report the end of his training.
But because of his illness, he let everything go. Compared to similar cases, the fine was therefore at the lower end of the scale anyway.