Rape of young girl demanded on the Internet: Four years in prison

In autumn 2018, a 54-year-old man from the Ried district used a messaging service to contact a woman in the Philippines. The woman, who apparently ran a network for the exploitation of children and has since been sentenced to life imprisonment, not only sent pornographic material of herself, but also apparently of underage girls. Several children were eventually rescued from the pedophile network thanks to investigations by the Swedish and American authorities.

Yesterday, the previously blameless electrical engineer, who has been in custody since September 2023, had to answer to a lay judge court in Ried. Public prosecutor Paul Fellner charged the 54-year-old with the crime of rape as a specific perpetrator and the crime of serious sexual abuse of minors as a specific perpetrator. In addition, numerous files containing child pornography were found on the Innviertler. The Innviertler is said to have had contact with the child pornography network for almost four years.

“It is unbelievably gruesome. But for my client the whole thing was a kind of computer game, it was pure fiction. He never seriously wanted anyone to be raped,” said defense attorney Andreas Mauhart.

“Now that I have started therapy in prison, I have to say that I hate myself. Now I understand that I did something wrong,” the defendant told Judge Josef Lautner. The payments he transferred to his chat partner were never transferred for the abuse of minors, justified the defendant, who is married and has an adult daughter. In the chat, he “drifted further and further” out of pure pleasure.

Sick fantasies

“I hope you find a young man who rapes the 15-year-old. I’ll give you 8,000 pesos (equivalent to 127 euros, editor’s note) if a boy rapes her on camera,” the accused is said to have written in one of the chats. “It’s true that I wrote it, but I didn’t want anyone to actually do it. For me it was a kind of role play,” said the accused. However, he never received such a video and never wrote to minors. “I simply don’t understand your responsibility. You were sent videos. Why are you talking about fiction and role play, you saw it in black and white,” said prosecutor Fellner, adding: “Based on the videos sent by your chat partner, in which minors were seen, you must have been aware of everything.”

Four years in prison

“Abuse actually happened there, children were freed from the network,” said Judge Lautner. “There is no indication that there was a chat with instructions and a corresponding video. My client has never done anything wrong in his entire life. I am asking for a lenient sentence,” said defense attorney Mauhart in his closing argument. “I am incredibly sorry. In the course of therapy, I have now understood what I did,” said the accused.

The jury sentenced the Innviertel resident to four years’ imprisonment. The chats show that the defendant wanted certain wishes to be implemented,” the judge explained the verdict, which the accused accepted with bowed head. “We in the West are entrusting the poor people in the East with the abuse,” said Lautner. The defense and the prosecution made no statement. The verdict is not yet final.

Allegations against office manager

A similar procedure is also looming against an official of a municipality in the Braunau district. The shocking allegations against the 58-year-old were made public at the end of January. The man is even said to have paid for live streams of children being abused in the Philippines from a municipality computer.

He is also accused of having instructed adults to torture the children in a “particularly degrading manner” while he watched via webcam. A trial date has not yet been set, the OÖN reported.