Yesterday, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna confirmed the verdict against Wolfgang Fellner for defamation. The regional court for criminal matters in Vienna had sentenced the “Austria” publisher to a fine of 120 daily rates, which in Fellner’s case corresponds to 120,000 euros. He has to pay a quarter of that amounting to 30,000 euros. The judgment is final.
Fellner’s ex-employee Katia Wagner had sued him because he had falsely described a memoir she had prepared, including allegations of harassment, about a dinner with him to the newspaper “Der Standard” as “fictitious”. In the first instance hearing in November, the media manager pleaded guilty after Wagner’s lawyer, Michael Rami, presented a recording and an audio transcript of the evening in question.
However, the penalty was too high for the convict. His lawyer, Georg Zanger, wanted his sentence reduced to a maximum of 50 daily rates. The judge did not allow the appeal. He explained that the court of first instance had not even exhausted a fifth of the sentence and also granted a conditional review of three quarters of it. The imposed probationary period of one year is also “unusually” low. A further reduction is not necessary. Fellner must compensate Wagner for the legal costs.
Fellner’s revocation was published in “Standard” on Friday. In it he corrects that the statements he made in the course of the dinner with Wagner, quoted in the newspaper, are not “fictitious” as he claims: for example, that it would be good for her if she had a man like him on her side, or whether he should “zip open her dress for a moment”.
Source: Nachrichten
