Overview
- The Munich Regional Court sentenced a 58-year-old priest to three years and three months for attempted aggravated sexual abuse after he tried to have sex with two drunk and partly sleeping teenagers following a 2005 Oktoberfest visit.
- The defendant admitted the assaults and the judge refused probation after finding the abuse of incapacitated youths carried too much weight.
- The court said other abuse the priest confessed from his Black Forest parish could not be punished because those acts fell outside Germany’s consent-based reform that took effect in 2016.
- Prosecutors asked for four years and ten months and the defense sought a suspended term, yet the panel imposed a shorter prison sentence after focusing only on the Wiesn incident.
- The Archdiocese of Freiburg said a victim’s 2023 report brought the case to light and it expressed shame that the abuse went undetected for years.