The dusseldorf district court simply forgot to serve the indictment on one of the defendants, several defense attorneys reported unanimously on monday. Although the error was noticed and corrected, the lawyer for the person concerned was given very little time to make his statement. The indictment covers more than 600 pages.
Because his request for an extension of time is said to have been ignored by the court, the defense lawyer concerned filed a motion of bias on monday. When the court wanted to put this request back, there was a hail of further requests from the defenders and the trial had to be interrupted several times. A spokesman for the court only confirmed that the request for partiality was about the deadlines for giving an opinion.
The dusseldorf prosecutor’s office has the red-light coarse thomas M. And eight other defendants – shareholders, managers, service staff and prostitutes – were indicted. They are said to have used.O.-and other means, and then plundered their credit cards. A total of a good 300,000 euros is said to have been looted in this way.
93 trial days are scheduled for the mammoth trial with around 90 witnesses. "Red light king" bert wollersheim is spared the punishment: the investigation exonerated him.
The prosecution accuses the defendants of fraud, grievous bodily harm, poisoning, predatory extortion and robbery, in varying degrees of participation. The district court does not expect a ruling until april 2014.
In four establishments the procedure is said to have happened to the clients. "In the case of my client, there is the suspicion that he was already administered substances with the funeral drink, through which he lost his consciousness," said nebenklage representative sebastian schales, who represents a client from frankfurt, from whom around 5,000 euros are said to have been debited.
The city of dusseldorf closed the red-light operations for several months in july 2012, and they were only able to reopen with new management. At times, nine defendants were in custody under investigation. The credit or check cards of the punters were allegedly charged to the limit in some cases and several tens of thousands of euros were debited.