Because he is said to have stolen numerous valuable bottles from a winery in the Neusiedl am See district, a 47-year-old was not legally sentenced to four years in prison at the Eisenstadt regional court on Tuesday. Overall, there was damage of over 200,000 euros.
The German-born man had already been in custody for 15 months and was convicted of serious commercial theft by burglary. “I’m really sorry about what happened. I didn’t think it would get to such an extent,” apologized the defendant, who pleaded guilty in principle. However, he denied the number and value of the wines stolen. From mid-2021 to March 2022, the wine thief is said to have entered the winery several times, where he also worked for a time. He is said to have sold the stolen goods via platforms such as “willhaben” or “Ebay”. According to his defense attorney, the defendant, who is said to have deprived several people of jewelry and valuables, needed the money to finance his gambling addiction.
The victim became aware of the theft after he bought a bottle of Roederer Cristal, hid it under boxes in the wine cellar and then disappeared. The thief must have deliberately targeted expensive wines and rearranged the stored bottles in the boxes so that this would not be noticed straight away, the winemaker explained in the witness stand. Investigators then pointed out to him the fine wines from his cellar that he wanted. According to the witness, 250 to 300 of the 7,000 bottles were lost.
The 47-year-old was finally convicted by a DNA trace on a wine bottle.
