The reason for the trial was a threatening letter written on November 5th last year by the defendant to a Bielefeld lawyer. The lawyer was supposed to pay back 16,328.04 euros to the 61-year-old. That was exactly the amount that the lawyer had seized on behalf of a creditor from the legacy of the unemployed Bielefeld resident in order to repay an old personal loan.
The 61-year-old had underpinned his demand for a refund of the money with a threat. Should the lawyer not pay, he would turn to a friend from rock circles, namely none other than the German boss of the Hells Angels. He would send people to the lawyer’s office in Gadderbaum. The defendant signed the letter with the number 88, known in right-wing extremist circles as the number combination for the Hitler salute.
“I did that. That was a mistake. I also feel sorry for that in retrospect, ”the Bielefeld native admitted in court. He also confessed to not knowing the boss of the German “Hell Angel” at all. He only saw the man once from a great distance.
After an hour and a half of the trial, neither presiding judge Astrid Salewski nor public prosecutor Claudia Bosse nor defense attorney Claas Hendrik Schmitz understood exactly what it was actually about, why part of his inheritance had been attached to the defendant by his mother. Only this much became somewhat clear: Apparently the Bielefeld man and his wife at the time had taken out a personal loan many years ago, but had not repaid it. There was probably no written contract.
The defendant never claims to have found out that the local district court had already sentenced the Bielefeld man and his wife to repay the debt in July 2009. He was all the more surprised by the sudden seizure of part of the inheritance.
The 61-year-old ultimately got away with a deep blue eye. In view of his age, his life as yet unpunished and the fact that the man had only threatened the lawyer after the lawyer failed to provide a clarifying answer, the case was closed. The man from Bielefeld was ordered to pay a fine of 500 euros to a non-profit association for ex-junkies.
–