Charges brought in the Schumacher blackmail case
Published: Wednesday, Sep 25th 2024, 13:10
Updated At: Wednesday, Sep 25th 2024, 13:10
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The public prosecutor's office in Wuppertal has brought charges against three men in the case of attempted blackmail against the family of former Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher. "The investigation has been completed," said senior public prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert.
A former security employee of the family is said to have provided private photos for the extortion for a five-figure sum. According to earlier information, he was also responsible for digitizing the family's private photos. The accused is a 53-year-old man from Wülfrath near Wuppertal. A man of the same age from Wuppertal is said to have carried out the blackmail attempt with his 30-year-old son.
The data carriers handed over were two hard disks and four USB sticks with videos and photo files. These were recorded before and after Schumacher's serious accident in 2013.
Calls to the Schumacher family
The alleged perpetrators are said to have made several calls in an attempt to extort 15 million euros from the Schumacher family - otherwise they would publish data on the darknet.
An employee of the family living in Switzerland requested a sample of the material as proof. This had been sent via a technically untraceable e-mail address. However, the Swiss police were able to trace the caller's number back to Kassel.
Further investigations had led to the two men from Wuppertal, of whom the 53-year-old named the man from Wülfrath as the source of the material and incriminated him during his interrogation before the magistrate. However, private material belonging to the Schumacher family had also been found with the father-son duo from Wuppertal.
Continuation of pre-trial detention requested
The 53-year-old from Wuppertal is now accused of attempted extortion in a particularly serious case, and his son of aiding and abetting this. The son is still at large. The man from Wülfrath is also accused of aiding and abetting attempted blackmail and violation of personal rights.
The public prosecutor's office has applied for the two older defendants to be remanded in custody. The Wuppertal district court must now decide whether to admit the charges to the main proceedings.
Earlier blackmail attempt
The investigation was initiated following a tip-off from Swiss law enforcement authorities. This is not the first attempt to blackmail the former racing driver's family. In 2017, the Reutlingen District Court in Baden-Württemberg sentenced a 25-year-old man for attempting to blackmail Schumacher's wife Corinna Schumacher for 900,000 euros. He had threatened that otherwise something would happen to the children. The man was sentenced to a suspended sentence of 21 months. He had given his real account number in an e-mail to Corinna Schumacher at the time.
Record Formula 1 world champion Schumacher was seriously injured in a skiing accident at the end of 2013. He has not appeared in public since then.
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