Ex-tycoon Schneider starts jail term this month
Reuters Story - January 10, 1998 12:06
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FRANKFURT, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Disgraced property tycoon
Juergen Schneider, convicted of fraud in Germany's biggest case
of corporate deceit since World War Two, will start his jail
term later this month, prosecutors said on Saturday.
Schneider, who was allowed by a judge to spend Christmas at
home, had been notified he will have to go to a Frankfurt jail
this month, prosecutors spokesman Job Tilmann told Reuters.
Schneider was sentenced last month to six years and nine
months. Taking into account the 32 months already spent in
custody, he is likely to be released in less than two years.
"He has received notification from the prosecutor's office
he must complete his prison term in Frankfurt-Preugesheim
prison. He must now start serving his sentence in the next two
and a half weeks," Tilmann said.
After Schneider, 63, was convicted of fraud and document
forgery involving properties in Berlin, Frankfurt and Leipzig,
the judge granted his wish to spend Christmas at home with his
family, saying there was no danger he would flee.
The collapse of his empire under more than five billion
marks ($2.7 billion) of debt in 1994 rocked the real estate
market, threatened the livelihoods of hundreds of builders and
exposed banks to public outrage at the ease with which they were
duped.
Schneider, once Germany's most celebrated building magnate,
specialised in top-quality refurbishments of historic hotels and
stylish shopping malls which added flair to city centres across
the country.
Summing up the six-month case, the judge said the banks --
Deutsche Bank AG , Dresdner Bank AG , BHF-Bank
, Bau-und Bodenbank and Norddeutsche Landesbank -- had
been blinded by his initial success, apparent wealth and haughty
manner into extending billions of marks of credit.
Schneider submitted loan applications which were often
blatantly forged to overstate projected rental income. He also
set up dummy companies, including an Australian one with $3 of
share capital, to support his requests for credit.
Throughout the trial Schneider insisted that his banks,
among them his largest creditor Deutsche Bank, tacitly accepted
obvious irregularities in his loan applications because they
believed his projects would turn in a profit.
($ = 1.822 German Marks) |
