Gustl Ferdinand Mollath (born 7 November 1956) is a German man who was acquitted during a criminal trial in 2006 on the basis of diminished criminal responsibility. He was subsequently committed to a high-security psychiatric hospital, as the court deemed him a danger to the public and declared him insane based on expert diagnoses of paranoid personality disorder. The judgment became the basis of controversy when elements of his supposed delusions regarding money-laundering activities at a major bank were found to be true. Mollath had consistently claimed there was a conspiracy to have him locked up in a psychiatric care ward because of his incriminating knowledge; evidence discovered in 2012 made his claims appear plausible.
In 2006, after being accused of assaulting his former wife, Petra Mollath, Gustl Mollath was tried at the District Court of Nürnberg-Fürth for aggravated assault and wrongful deprivation of personal liberty of his ex-wife as well as damage to property. The court considered the charges proven but acquitted Mollath on the basis of finding him criminally insane. A pivotal argument for Mollath's insanity, besides the general impression he made, was that he insisted his wife was involved in a complex system of tax evasion. The court came to call it a paranoid belief system Mollath had developed, which led him to accuse many people of being part of a conspiracy and acting irrationally and aggressively, by puncturing car tires of people in a way that could lead to accidents.
In 2012, the case was widely publicized when evidence brought to the attention of state prosecutors showed that suspicious activities were carried out over several years by members of staff (including Mollath's ex-wife) at the Munich-based HypoVereinsbank, as detailed in an internal audit report carried out by the bank in 2003. The reported money transfers were not illegal per se.
In June 2013, Mollath's former wife spoke for the first time to the press. According to her, Gustl Mollath was continually violent towards her, prior and during marriage. The alleged money laundering activities became an issue only after their divorce, which directly contradicts Gustl Mollath's version that he had suffered from the illegal activities of his former wife. Gustl Mollath has denied the allegations levied against him and has said that he was being persecuted for blowing the whistle on tax evasion at HypoVereinsbank.
On 6 August 2013, the Higher Regional Court of Nuremberg ordered a retrial and Mollath's immediate release, overturning a verdict of the Regional Court of Regensburg that had blocked a retrial.
Mollath's 2018 action for damages by the unlawful custody has been concluded in November 2019 by an ex gratia payment of €600,000 by the defendant Free State of Bavaria.
Early life Gustl Mollath was born 7 November 1956 in Nuremberg. He attended a Waldorf school and obtained an entrance qualification for universities of applied sciences in 1976. He then began to study mechanical engineering, which he subsequently abandoned. Mollath lost his father in 1960 and his mother in 1980, both due to cancer. In 1981 he worked for about two years as a controller at MAN and then founded the automotive Augusto M. workshop, specializing in tyres, vehicle tuning and vintage car restoration.Monika Anthes und Eric Beres: Die Story im Ersten: Der Fall Mollath – In den Fängen von Justiz, Politik und Psychiatrie in Das Erste vom 3. Juni 2013
In 1978 he met his future wife Petra Mollath, who worked from 1990 as a financial adviser at HypoVereinsbank. They married in 1991.
Court case and detainment According to Petra Mollath, a violent confrontation and assault happened in August 2001 in their apartment. In 2002, she moved out.
In September 2003 Petra Mollath turned to Gabriele Krach, a psychiatrist at "Klinikum am Europakanal", Erlangen, who issued a medical opinion, sourced from her representations, that Gustl Mollath was most likely suffering from a serious psychiatric illness.
Petra Mollath transferred this document on 23 September to the District Court of Straubing by fax, whereupon it was used in allegations of aggravated assault, leading to criminal proceedings against Mollath before the District Court of Nuremberg. Mollath twice dismissed proposed assessment dates for his mental state in 2003, first in mid-2004 and again in early 2005. He was therefore admitted by the court to a psychiatric hospital for a psychological assessment. Gustl and Petra Mollath divorced in 2004, and late in 2005 he was charged with assault and accused of damaging car tires (in such a way that they might have caused severe accidents) of various people involved in the case.
From February 2006, Mollath was deemed to be a public danger and was held in three different institutions including, from April 2006, the Straubing District Hospital.
The District Court Nuernberg-Fuerth eventually acquitted Mollath in August 2006, because of his attested state of mind, yet considered the accusation proven. The court ordered his hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital because he was considered dangerous. The judgment was based, among other things, on the opinion of expert Klaus Leipziger from Bayreuth, who attested to Mollath's paranoid delusions of a "black money complex".
A pdf scan of Dr. Leipziger's report can be downloaded from the website of Mr. Mollath's attorney at law, Dr. Gerhard Strate. pdf file (18,6 MB; access-date = 28 August 2013)
Since mid-2009, Mollath was hospitalized in the District Hospital of Bayreuth.
Political and media discussion Numerous media outlets, in particular the Süddeutsche Zeitung (major German newspaper) and Report Mainz (investigative TV magazine), reported critically for years about the Mollath case, for example about the trial management. They complain about mistakes in the court hearings and the selective consideration of evidence. For their series of articles in the Süddeutsche Zeitung about the Mollath case, Olaf Przybilla and Uwe Ritzer were awarded with the 3rd prize of the Guardian Prize of the German daily press (Wächterpreis der deutschen Tagespresse)
First report from Report Mainz The case was first presented on TV by Report Mainz on 13 December 2011. Mollath's former wife was employed by the HypoVereinsbank and Gustl Mollath accused her and other employees of facilitating customers tax evasion. The HypoVereinsbank then performed an internal investigation and subsequently terminated her employment in 2003, along with other employees.
In light of these findings, court juror Mr. Westenrieder criticized the trial procedures. He assumed that the money laundering allegations by Mollath were inaccurate. The presiding judge interrupted and threatened Mollath with throwing him out of court, if he would ever mention the issue of tax evasion and black money transfers again.
The report also criticized that the court didn't consider documents and handwritten notes about accounts in Switzerland, as well as the comprehensive 106 pages Mollath presented during the trial procedures.
The report also accused the state prosecutor that they had detailed information from Mollath's complaint against his ex-wife of 11 June 2003 to pursue and check if there were tax evasion transfers going on. The Nuremberg state prosecutors dismissed these complaints as "too general." The state prosecutors stated to the magazine in writing that there is no reason for an investigation.Peter Mühlbauer: Schwarzgeldgeschäfte-Whistleblower in die Psychiatrie abgeschoben? In: Telepolis, 13. November 2012.
Urgency motion in the Bavarian Parliament After an urgency motion of the Bavarian SPD party in the Bavarian Parliament, the Minister of Justice Beate Merk (CSU party) defended herself in a speech in front of the Parliament on 15 December 2011 against the impression Mollath had been hospitalized due to his criminal complaint.„71. VF, 08.03.2012“ Bericht der Bayerischen Staatsministerin der Justiz und für Verbraucherschutz zu dem Dringlichkeitsantrag der Abgeordneten Hubert Aiwanger u. a. zu den Vorwürfen im Fall Mollath im Rechtsausschuss (PDF; 4,7 MB) am 8. März 2012. The following day she was explaining through a spokesman, that the accommodation Mollaths in psychiatry was a consequence of his crimes and had nothing to do with his wife or his lawsuit against the bank. She said, Mollath harmed his wife with strangulation marks on the neck, large hematoma and a bleeding bite wound. He also stabbed dozens of car tires, including those on vehicles of the wife's lawyers. His accommodation was confirmed by the Federal court and is observed regularly.REPORT MAINZ-Bericht Merk: Gustl Mollath sitzt zurecht in der Psychiatrie. In: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, 15. Dezember 2011. She defended herself against the allegations that the state prosecution had failed to act because of instructions from leading politicians. Thereupon, the state prosecutor himself directed some questions towards the HypoVereinsbank.
Second and third report from Report Mainz The case reached the general public after 13 November 2012, when the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Report Mainz again dealt with the Mollath case. Report Mainz had acquired the 2003 audit report of the bank, which made it public in the TV magazine series. According to the results of the investigation, Mollath's allegations were indeed in some areas diffuse, but his wife had actually communicated customers against commissions to a bank in Switzerland and also transferred funds there. They also found allegations to be true, that employees violated the tax code and the Securities Trading Act as well as hints to tax evasion aid. A "well-known personality" has been helped to launder black money.Confidential special audit report of HypoVereinsbank refuted statements of the Bavarian Justice Minister Beate Merk (CSU), the Bavarian state parliament, Report Mainz (ARD) of 13 November 2012Bank report puts Minister in need. In: Berliner Zeitung, 14 November 2012.
Report Mainz confronted Minister Merk in an interview with a quote from the audit report, which states that "all verifiable allegations were proven to be true". The magazine put that statement in contrast to her testimony before the Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs on 30 October 2012, where she said Mollath's allegations weren't true. Minister Merk thereupon declared in the interview that no pursuable statements had been proved to be true. The next day she explained in more detail, that the relevant audit report allegations had affected employment law issues and were not pursuable. As far as criminal matters were concerned, the statutes of limitations had already occurred. It was not a question of whether Mollath is telling the truth, but whether he is dangerous or not.Merk: Mollath ist kein Justizopfer. Die Welt am 28. November 2012.Bankskandal aufgedeckt – von Ehefrau eingewiesen. In: Die Welt, 22. November 2012.
Tax investigator Frank Wehrheim accused Minister Merk, that her statement was a "deliberate false statement". Süddeutsche Zeitung, which was reporting on the case at the same time as Report Mainz, also said that the financial authorities had started investigations after learning of the existence of the audit report.
On 4 December 2012 Report Mainz broached the issue for a third time, this time particularly with regards to the allegation of Judge Brixner's bias in the case. He arranged a call at the tax authorities, that Mollath's allegations were not being pursued. aus der Sendung Report Mainz vom 4. Dezember 2012.
Public reactions