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Nuremberg Regional Court: Defendant in the courtroom

Photo: Pia Bayer / dpa

The deeds worried many parents – first in Nuremberg, then in a small town in Swabia. A man steals children's clothes from daycare centers and schools. He places their young son's underwear on the doorstep of a family, along with anonymous letters in which he describes sexual fantasies with all three sons of the family.

When the police catch a suspect, the relief in Nuremberg is great – and the bewilderment in his place of residence in the district of Neu-Ulm. The married man regularly took care of children there. He abused a boy several times.

The 43-year-old has therefore been sentenced to six years in prison for serious sexual abuse, production of pornographic content, threats and theft, among other things. This was decided by the Nuremberg Regional Court. The defendant had previously confessed to the crimes in court. He regretted it and apologized for it, he said through tears. "I've done a lot wrong. I have disappointed and hurt many people." The verdict is not yet final.

The deeds had attracted a lot of media attention, especially the thefts, said the presiding judge. In the end, however, it was the threatening letters to the family that drew the attention of the police to the suspect. This had been seen on a surveillance camera in front of the house, a police officer reported in court. The investigation team then evaluated the radio cells in the area and compared them with those in one of the kindergarten burglaries nearby. Among the hits was also the suspect.

Arrest presumably prevented further deeds

According to the police officer, the investigators then attached a GPS tracker to his car. "You could see early on that he was out and about at night in the area where schools and kindergartens were," she explained. When there was another break-in at a school and, according to the GPS data, he was nearby, an arrest warrant was issued. According to the police officer, the arrest last December prevented further serious crimes. A profiler from Munich, who had analyzed the letters, had taken them very seriously, she said in court. The suspect may have been on the verge of living out his sexual fantasies.

In the man's apartments in Nuremberg and in the district of Neu-Ulm, the police discovered not only masses of children's clothing, but also data carriers on which abuse scenes of the accused with a child are stored. In the interrogation, he later confessed to having abused the boy from the neighborhood six times – and thus admitted, according to the court, more acts than could have been proven to him. He had filmed and photographed two of the crimes.

wit/dpa