So this is the man to whom the women felt connected before he robbed them of their money. From which they felt seen. Held. Meant.
Julia Schaaf
Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
- Follow I follow
It's Tuesday morning, Enrico B. enters the courtroom at the Rostock District Court. He wears dark jeans, very white sneakers and a sweater in the color of peanut butter, which brings out the reddish shimmer of his three-day beard. A sporty, compact guy with a receding hairline and gelled back hair. The face of the 49-year-old is somewhat reminiscent of Mark Waschke or Bradley Cooper, but – at least on this day – without comparable charm. Time gnaws at him, and because B. worked as an undertaker, one would like to say: like a weathered gravestone. This has not harmed its attractiveness. When B. wrinkles his forehead, he looks serious. When he runs his finger around his mouth, which he does all the time, it seems thoughtful. In the light of the hall lamps, a wedding ring shines on his right hand.
"He knew how to build trusting sexual relationships"
Of course, if you want to understand how this man made three women not only go to bed with him, but lend him a total of more than 200,000 euros, of which he repaid only a fraction, an impression in the courtroom is of course only the beginning. All three, according to the prosecutor in her indictment for commercial fraud, saw B. as a "solvent, successful businessman".
Since 2012 at the latest, no account, no car, no company, no property has been running on him; the creditors were hot on his heels. In 2001, according to the indictment, B. had a debt of 380,000 euros, in 2020 it was a total of 730,000 euros. Nevertheless, "he knew how to build a trusting, friendly to partnership-based sexual relationship," said prosecutor Maureen Wiechmann. The reading of her indictment lasts almost nine minutes; the list of sums of money that the undertaker received from the three women between 2016 and 2018 is long.
The 64-year-old, who is called as a witness at the start of the trial, is what you call a seasoned businesswoman. The graduate engineer runs a freight forwarding company in a small town in Mecklenburg, which she built up with her husband. When she rejects the defense's accusation that she may have embezzled business assets with the loans to B., she counters confidently: "It's my business. I'm a shareholder, I'm a managing director, it's up to me to take profits." On the table in front of her is a leather briefcase. The pumps with the wide heels allow an energetic step.
In the summer of 2017, however, she lost her husband, cancer, and the prosecutor says of Enrico B.: "He took advantage of the emotional situation after the death in a planned way." For 40 years, the entrepreneur says, the couple spent almost day and night together. Now the carrier was alone. She threw herself into work, ten to twelve-hour days, including weekends. Meanwhile, her accountant recommended the local undertaker Enrico B., an acquaintance of her husband's. The funeral was mainly taken care of by her children.
Then, however, Enrico B. visited her in the evening, allegedly because something did not fit with the urn. This first conversation became personal and lasted more than two hours. Even then, the entrepreneur says, B. hugged her. "I thought that was totally wrong. But afterwards, when I was so alone, it was nice." At a reunion after the funeral, when B. finally brought the bill and death certificate, they "sat again and spoke, spoke, spoke". This time, she asked for a hug of her own accord.