Verdict against Chief Public Prosecutor Alexander B.: Six years in prison for corruption and embezzlement

It is one of the highest penalties ever imposed on a public prosecutor in the Federal Republic of Germany: On Friday, the Frankfurt Regional Court sentenced Alexander B. to six years in prison for commercial bribery, embezzlement and tax evasion. According to the findings of the Commercial Criminal Chamber, between 2015 and 2020, the senior public prosecutor collected around 277,000 euros in bribes from a friend's company, which prepared expert opinions in B.'s preliminary proceedings. He received about 66,000 euros from a second company. According to the judges, the state of Hesse suffered a loss of 583,000 euros for the activities of the experts, which were wrongly calculated.

Anna-Sophia Lang

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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Helmut Schwan

Freelance writer for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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It remains to be seen whether the decision will conclude Hesse's biggest judicial scandal. On the one hand, because the verdict is not yet final. On the other hand, because it is not foreseeable how deeply the trust in the integrity of law enforcement has been shaken by the case. And what recourse claims the country will face.

According to the court's findings, Alexander B., who is now 55 years old, established a system that provided him with illegal additional income for more than ten years. In some cases, he even had the bribe brought to his office. Due to the statute of limitations, only the acts since 2015 could be charged. As B. admitted at the beginning of the trial, he had demanded shares of their profits from two service companies that supported him in the investigations against doctors and pharmacists. From his most important partner, the company of his friend, who was co-accused of bribery, he initially collected 30 percent, later even 60 percent.

A disaster for the judiciary

For the Hessian judiciary, the case developed into a disaster, as it revealed that with B., of all people, a man who had ploughed a delicate field with supposedly exemplary commitment, had developed criminal energy. He headed the "Central Office for Combating Property Crimes in Health Care" in the Hessian General Prosecutor's Office. At the instigation of B., Hesse was one of the first federal states to create this institution in order to track down fraud and corruption in this billion-dollar market.

Alexander B., who, according to his own account, was available "24/7" and sometimes conducted more than a hundred investigations at the same time, did not stop at prosecution. He gave lectures, published a trade journal, trained employees of health insurance companies to familiarize them with the pitfalls and gaps of the billing system. Ministers liked to show themselves with the jack-of-all-trades. And B., who is also the spokesman for the Prosecutor General's Office, was happy to show up with them.

Now, according to the presiding judge, it is clear from the pronouncement of the verdict: B. had "professionally installed and maintained a system" for 13 years, which was about nothing more than money. "He did it with considerable effort and took advantage of control deficits." The damage had to be borne by the solidarity community of taxpayers: In 54 cases, the chief public prosecutor had signed the invoices of the companies as factually correct, although he knew that the services listed therein were illegally billed.

For a long time, no one stopped him

The ministry and colleagues gave the defendant a completely free hand all these years. Former Attorney General Hans-Josef Blumensatt said as a witness in the trial before the Frankfurt District Court that B. had been considered a luminary in his field of expertise – which apparently made him sacrosanct. What was left out was what representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office, as the country's highest law enforcement authority, have been preaching for decades as fundamental to the prevention of corruption: the dual control principle in the awarding of contracts, the audit of accounts by a person other than the client, regular internal audits in the authority. All this was grossly disregarded; the State Audit Office has sharply reprimanded the omissions.

After B.'s arrest in the summer of 2020, improvements were made in a hurry, the central office in Frankfurt was dissolved and rebuilt in Fulda. This is intended to regain trust in the judiciary. However, reservations among physicians remain high. For a long time, their stakeholders had complained, even in a letter to Prime Minister Boris Rhein, that the central office was acting completely disproportionately. Even in the event of possible minor errors in the billing, the head of the company threatens to confiscate the entire IT system and thus paralyze medical practices.

In addition to a few years in prison, dismissal, the loss of his civil servant status and pension scheme, the senior public prosecutor, who has only been suspended until the verdict becomes final, and who continues to receive a reduced salary for the time being, will also face enormous recourse claims from the country; we are talking about twelve million euros.

In his closing remarks, Alexander B. spoke of "mistakes that he could no longer make up for". He sees who is solely responsible when he looks in the mirror.