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Although the woman was mobile, she has received level 6 care allowance of 1,200 euros per month since 2008 due to her alleged bed rest. A doctor noticed the inconsistencies in 2018, and at the beginning of 2023 the 33-year-old was caught stealing without a wheelchair.
The defendant began to swear loudly
The non-final guilty verdict of 22 months was given for serious commercial fraud, obtaining false evidence and theft. The sentence was suspended for a probationary period of three years. While the public prosecutor accepted the verdict, the Viennese woman’s legal representative asked for three days to think about it, as the defendant began to complain loudly after the verdict was announced, as she had already done during the course of the trial. The case originally involved four defendants, and the 33-year-old’s parents and husband were also in court. The woman’s case was dropped at the time because she was initially unfit to stand trial. Now the criminal trial was also underway against her.
Relatives pretended to be caregivers
The 33-year-old has been receiving level 6 care allowance since October 2008. At that time, MA40 (social and health law) was still responsible for the payment. After a legal reform in 2012, the Pension Insurance Agency (PVA) took over this task. In 2018, a doctor noticed that the woman’s family members, who also all received care allowance, were posing as each other’s carers.
Doctors discovered abnormalities
During an examination, the internist as well as the neurologists and psychiatrists noticed that the woman had calluses on her heels despite her supposed bed rest. “The heels were calloused, which is a sign that someone walks regularly,” one of the doctors testified in court. In bedridden people, this skin would be “very soft”. The psychiatric court expert Siegfried Schranz, who examined the woman before the trial based on her sanity and ability to stand trial, even discovered calluses and corns on the woman’s toes, which would only appear if she wore high-heeled shoes.
17,000 euros repayment to PVA
The woman’s care allowance was then reduced from May 2019 because it was assumed that she had been doing better at least from the beginning of 2018 and a repayment notice of almost 17,000 euros was issued; the woman had to pay the money back to the PVA. She was then downgraded to care level 2. Instead of the previous monthly 1,200 euros, the 33-year-old only received 290 euros, which the woman filed a complaint with the Labor and Social Court (ASG). The court assumed a possible – at least attempted – damage of 43,000 euros, since – if the doctor had not noticed these inconsistencies – the next inspection would not have taken place until spring 2024.
Surveillance camera filmed thief in drugstore
In February 2023, the 33-year-old was caught – as could be seen on surveillance cameras – stealing a pen in a drugstore supermarket at Westbahnhof while walking normally. “It doesn’t match what I just saw and the assessment,” the neurologist who made a home visit to the woman in February 2019 had to admit after looking at the surveillance images.
“That was strange for me as a neurologist”
When the doctors visited, the 33-year-old either lay in her bed or sat in her wheelchair. The young woman may also have tried to feign mental illness by acting abnormally. The neurologist reported that the patient first had a pacifier in her mouth and then smoked a cigarette. She also attacked the doctor verbally and physically aggressively by shooting pens at her and saying incoherent things. “That didn’t fit into any pathological clinical picture,” said the doctor. “That was strange for me as a neurologist.” Another neurologist emphasized that the 33-year-old was “clear-minded” during her visit and showed an “excessive, over-emphasized reaction,” “like when you are on stage.” Her behavior did not match the findings; she assumed that she had an organic personality disorder.
Judge addressed as “Doctor”.
The 33-year-old also presented herself this way in court. Sitting in a wheelchair, she gave confused answers to the questions of the jury chairman Christoph Zonsics-Kral. She said she was in the hospital and she kept addressing the judge as “Doctor.” When the topic came to the General Hospital, where the 33-year-old was once treated for MS in 2017, she began to scream, so that she was expelled from the room several times. Even when a witness emphasized that the woman in front of the hall was having a normal conversation with her husband, she began a tirade of abuse. “She has well-rehearsed role behavior,” said one of the neurologists.
The prosecutor spoke of a “charade.” The state of health was not so bad that care level 6 was justified, said the prosecutor. And even if MS is a “disease with a thousand faces,” as one doctor described it, you cannot suddenly walk again after a long period of bed rest.
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Source: Nachrichten
