[Trending News] End to extortion to Schumacher's family: they condemn three years in prison to the blackmail of blackmail

The extortion of Michael Schumacher's family has come to an end. This Wednesday, February 12, the administrative court of Wuppertal (Germany) declared three people to steal private images of the Formula 1 pilot and try to blackmail their relatives demanding 15 million euros in exchange for not publishing them. The extortion leader is the goalkeeper Yilma Tozurkan, who has been sentenced to three years in prison, according to German media. The other two convicted are his accomplices: his son, Daniel Lins, who has received a six -month suspended penalty; and a former pilot -toaespaldas, Markus Fritsche, sentenced to two years on probation. Schumacher's family, who is not seen in public from the serious ski accident he suffered in December 2013, has expressed his intention to appeal the sentences, considering them too indulgent.

The trio took the images of the seven -time Formula 1 champion in early 2024. At that time, Fritsche took advantage of his proximity to Schumacher as employee of the security company hired to protect the family home in Switzerland, and could thus access to private information. The exguardaesualdas stole hard drives from a computer and obtained more than 1,500 images, videos and confidential medical records of the expilot. Subsequently, he delivered all the material to Tozurkan, who was in charge of contacting the family and threatening to disseminate the files if they did not receive the payment. This denounced the extortion of the German police, which began an investigation that concluded in August 2024 with the arrest of the three involved. In the police operation, the storage devices contained in the stolen information were seized.

The trial began last December and, during the last sessions of the hearing, the group leader admitted the facts. As the German newspaper collects Bild, Tozurkan apologized last Wednesday with the family. “I'm very sorry and I'm ashamed. It was very disgusting. I assume all the responsibility, ”he said before the sentence was pronounced.

Little is known about Schumacher's health status since he suffered a serious brain injury in a ski accident during a family vacation in the French Alps 11 years ago. Since then, his family maintains strict privacy on possible improvements or mishaps, and access to information is limited to the people closest to him. What is known is that Expiloto requires constant medical attention, that his wife, Corinna, has been his greatest support and that the cost of his treatments is very high, of millions of euros per year.

In fact, his wife, over the years, has sold his assets to raise money that covers those expenses. For example, on May 14, 2024 he sold eight watches that belonged to the legendary German pilot for 4.25 million dollars (almost 4 million euros) in the House of Christie's auctions in Geneva. Schumacher was a passionate clock collector. Two of them were personalized gifts he had received from the then director of the Ferrari team, Jean Todt, to celebrate his successes with the Italian team. A day before, a gold ring and 18 carat diamonds that Ferrari delivered to Schumacher as a gift at the end of the 2003 season. He commemorated his five consecutive titles between 1999 and 2003, and sold in the house of Miami Boham's auctions for 6,400 pounds (about 7,500 euros). Previously, Corinna sold other family assets, including Schumacher's private jet and her house in Norway, where vacations passed.

The marriage and their two children (Mick and Gina-Maria) have lived since 2018 in Mallorca, in a villa that at the time belonged to the president of Real Madrid, Florentino Pérez. It has also been undone of its Switzerland mansion, where the Expileto began its recovery, for 58.7 million euros. The Celebrity Net Worth specialized portal estimates the current fortune of the Schumacher family, according to its April 2024 update, at 600 million dollars (552 million euros).

Corinna has fiercely protected her husband's privacy from the accident for which she spent a year in a coma, allowing very few details of her physical and mental condition to be made public. The last official news that exists about the state of Schumacher is a statement that the family issued in 2019 to set the speculation: “They can be sure that it continues in the best hands and that we do our best to help you. Please understand that we continue Michael's wishes and to keep a matter as delicate as your health. ”

This is not the first case of extortion faced by the Schumacher family or the first legal battle they win. In 2017, an individual was sentenced to 21 months in prison for threatening to damage Mick Schumacher, son of the Expileot, if he did not receive money. And in April 2023, the family won the trial against the German magazine The currentthat he had published a false interview with the athlete, generated by artificial intelligence (AI). They obtained compensation of 200,000 euros.