Salzburg gastro division manager reached into the cash register for years: conditional imprisonment
Defendant at the Salzburg regional court convicted of theft totaling 180,000 euros.
For three and a half years a – meanwhile – division manager of several catering establishments had repeatedly reached into the cash register and ultimately brought his employer around 180,000 euros in total. On Tuesday, the previously untrained man, he is already over fifty, had to take a seat on the prosecution chair in front of a jury panel because of serious commercial theft at the regional court.
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the thieving gastro manager had “covered” his withdrawals with factual invoices and manipulated vouchers. Opposite Ilona Schalwich-Mózes, the presiding judge, the lawyer Franz Essl defended defendants ruefully confessed: “I am deeply ashamed of what I have done.” Defense attorney Essl spoke of an “unfavorable chain of several” that made his client “slip into the criminal”: “He was in financial need. His marriage was already falling apart and he met a prostitute, for whom he spent a lot of money Nothing got aside of the stolen money, is gone. He’s already working again and will make up for the damage as much as possible. “
Attorney Jörg Dostal, who represents the management of the damaged catering company, emphasized that “the defendant – with all due understanding for his illness – shamelessly exploited his very socially minded employer who paid him a good salary”.
The jury finally issued a brief, mild sentence with nine months of fully conditional imprisonment. The judge referred above all to the comprehensive confession and die – even if so far only in a very small amount – partial damage compensation. The judgment is final.