“I found out from the newspapers that charges were brought against me,” said Zoltán Herczeg, a fashion designer who was arrested in October 2022 for drug possession and trafficking, but in the end the latter suspicion was not confirmed. Despite this, the Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office eventually requested a prison sentence for Zoltán Herczeg, as well as his 61-year-old partner, from whom, according to the indictment, the fashion designer bought marijuana several times.
The Herczegs are expected to receive the indictment from the court in the next few days, this is the normal procedure – Dr. István Keviczki, Zoltán Herczeg’s lawyer, spoke to Telex. The indictment will also show the exact content of the punishment the prosecution intended for the fashion designer – at least in the event that Herczeg admits his guilt and waives his right to a trial.
“We don’t yet know how much that is, but based on my experience so far and knowing the prosecutor’s logic, I would guess between 2 and 3 years in prison, which will probably be about that much in the indictment. In addition, at the same time, according to judicial practice, the end of the case will almost always be a suspended prison sentence,” explained Dr. Keviczki, who says that just like at the beginning of the case, the problem here is that they could not rise above Zoltán Herczeg’s quality as a public figure. “If he had been a noname figure, he would have been detained for three days, and the prosecution could have made a suspended motion as a result,” he added.
Zoltán Herczeg was arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking and possession in October 2022. Earlier, István Keviczki, Herczeg’s lawyer, told Telex that 145.58 grams of marijuana and 18.63 grams of cocaine were found in his client’s possession. Herczeg spent half a year under arrest, he was transferred from Markó utca in the city center to Gyorskogsi utca in Buda, then to Venyige utca prison, and finally at the initiative of the prosecution he was put under house arrest and had to wear a tracker. This approx. after four months, on August 21, 2023, it was taken off the feet of the fashion designer.
In addition to Herczeg, there is another person involved in the case, a 61-year-old man who was also arrested on the same day as the fashion designer. According to the indictment, the 61-year-old man from Budapest sold marijuana to Herczeg several times starting in the spring of 2022. On the day of their capture, October 21, 2022, the 61-year-old man sold 91 grams of marijuana to Herczeg for HUF 350,000. The item exceeds the upper limit of minor quantity, but does not reach the lower limit of significant quantity. The 61-year-old man consumed small amounts of marijuana and cocaine.
The other defendant in the case – Herczeg – obtained drugs from other sources besides his friend – in addition to marijuana, cocaine and DMT (dimethyltryptamine). It’s the latter ayahuasca tea one of its ingredients. According to the indictment, starting in 2020, the fashion designer offered a small amount of marijuana and an equally small amount of cocaine to a friend with whom they consumed it a couple of times a year, and in 2022, he consumed marijuana cigarettes together with someone else. Before his capture, Zoltán Herczeg consumed cannabis.
Telex conducted an interview with Zoltán Herczeg one month after his release, in which the fashion designer talked about his experiences in prison and how he thinks he might have been tricked.
