Overview
- Prosecutors in Heilbronn filed an indictment Thursday charging a 36‑year‑old judge and two court employees, aged 37 and 29, with sharing confidential registry and case information for private purposes.
- Investigators say the 37‑year‑old offered a meal to the judge in December 2023 as a quid pro quo for asking the Staatsanwaltschaft Ulm whether arrest warrants existed for her then‑partner and his brother.
- The indictment alleges separate improper actions including an unauthorized civil‑registry query in October 2022 and a July 2024 disclosure by the judge about an ongoing criminal case.
- The suspects face multiple counts such as accepting and offering bribes and violating official secrecy laws; the indictment is not a conviction and all three remain at liberty while the Landgericht Ulm weighs opening main proceedings.
- Authorities ran the probe from Heilbronn for neutrality and linked the case to wider concerns about internal data leaks in the region following earlier searches in Stuttgart, which could lead to tighter controls and greater scrutiny of justice‑system access.