Trial

Judge: “I don’t believe a word you say!”

The defendant stated that he was blind.

(Bild: Dorn Chantall/Krone KREATIV)

Shock call last October at Dornbirn District Court. Defendant threatened the judge in charge with reprisals if she refused to remove his adult representative. This was not the only reason why the 43-year-old had to stand trial at Feldkirch Regional Court (Vorarlberg).

The public prosecutor accused the disabled pensioner, who has been convicted several times, of a whole litany of crimes. In order to obtain a wheelchair, last year, the disabled defendant allegedly presented the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) with a document in which he had previously falsified the diagnosis.

In order to fraudulently obtain social benefits, the 43-year-old is also alleged to have changed his PVA decision regarding the care level and also faked payment receipts and submitted them to the authorities. However, in order to avoid a delay in the proceedings, the trial on Wednesday focused on three other offenses with which he was charged. Namely those of making dangerous threats, attempted resistance to state authority and defamation.

His first victim: the responsible guardianship judge of the Dornbirn district court. He contacted her by telephone on the morning of October 7 and asked her to remove his adult representative from his position by anonymous order. Otherwise he would come to court and something bad would happen.

When the defendant actually turns up at the district court and is removed from security, the 43-year-old leaves. Two days later, he slandered his adult representative, his former landlord and a former neighbor in front of the police in Dornbirn, claiming that they had locked him in a barn in Dornbirn for several hours. This was despite the fact that he was blind and in a wheelchair.

The witnesses all denied both the alleged crime and the state of health of the accused. "He can walk and see", they state on the record. The police officer called as a witness reports that the alleged paraplegic and blind delinquent is a well-known little Munchausen. "We have a photo of him carrying two crates of beer just a few weeks before the incident." After the judge rejects all requests for evidence, such as obtaining an expert opinion confirming the client's paraplegia or lack of sight, the judge announces the non-appealable sentence shortly afterwards: four years in prison. "I have no doubt about the witnesses' testimony. But I don't believe a word you say."