From January 2022 to October 2023, he repeatedly denigrated, insulted and threatened two senior employees of Wiener Wohnen via email. When he announced that he would “visit them personally,” those affected filed a complaint.
“I would like to apologize for this. I’m sorry,” said the 59-year-old at the beginning of the hearing, to which he appeared without legal representation. After the death of his parents in September 2018 and December 2018, he was under “family strain”. There were problems with the probate process because the parents apparently had recently stopped paying the rent for their apartment. “I incurred costs that I mightn’t clarify. And I mightn’t talk to Wiener Wohnen regarding it,” said the defendant. That annoyed him.
“Out of frustration”
“Then how come you are so abusive?” Judge Julia Matiasch wanted to know and confronted the man with passages from his emails, leaving out the nastiest parts out of consideration for a school class present in the audience. “Out of frustration,” said the 59-year-old. “You were pretty angry then,” said the judge. – “Quite.”
The emails – a total of 23 were included in the criminal complaint – went to a complaint mailbox, but were specifically addressed to two female employees. The defendant asserted that he did not consciously target women in order to verbally disparage them. He turned to “the people in accounting and management” “who are responsible for this.”
1000 euros in compensation
The two victims testified as witnesses following the defendant left the courtroom at their request. “I saw the announcement that I was stopping by as a threat. Since then, I have tried to ensure that there is no photo of me anywhere. Trying to remain unrecognizable is exhausting and comes with restrictions,” said one witness. The second victim said the emails were “very violent”. The colleagues “got everything” because the emails were addressed to a functional mailbox. Since then, she no longer goes into the parking garage alone and has had her address blocked in the central registration register.
Both women demanded 1,000 euros in compensation from the defendant for the psychological impairment they suffered. “A thousand? I think that’s excessive. 100 euros is okay,” the 59-year-old responded rather angrily. He “won’t do that anymore anyway. It was an exceptional situation”.
However, following the complaint once morest him, he sent another email in March of this year, as emerged in the hearing. The subject of the email already suggested that it contained crude and rude content. The judge urged the man to refrain from this behavior in the future, otherwise he would face prison: “Remember, you are no longer the youngest!”
In the end, the two women were awarded compensation of 200 euros each. The 59-year-old agreed with the verdict. Since he was not represented by a lawyer, he still has three days to file an appeal once morest his conviction.
