Heidelberg region. (lew) A 74-year-old former employee of a pharmacy in Steinachtal and her 54-year-old son were sentenced on Tuesday morning before the district court of Heidelberg to one year and one year and six months’ suspended prison sentence. As judge Walburga Englert-Biedert stated, the two were guilty of joint fraud in 63 individual acts in a particularly serious case.
Between 2014 and 2018, the 54-year-old, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, had various doctors prescribe prescriptions that he had his mother confirm at the pharmacy. Although the medication never left the pharmacy afterwards, the son submitted the prescriptions to the insurance company. All 63 cases added up, this resulted in an amount of around 44,300 euros, which the 54-year-old had reimbursed from his private health insurance.
As a fraud expert from the insurance company testified, the scam was only discovered by accident. Because the pharmacy number was missing from some of the prescriptions submitted and there were some inconsistencies in the central pharmaceutical number (PZN), the insurance company routinely examined the prescriptions more closely. The full extent of the fraud was only revealed in contact with the owner of the pharmacy.
The latter also testified and reported that she was amazed when she found out about the fraud. She first got wind of the matter through a fax from the insurance company. In consultation with their fraud department, however, she did not confront her employee directly with the allegations. She only had this conversation after she had her summons in the mailbox. The employment contract with the 74-year-old, “my oldest colleague who always worked well”, has since been terminated. The 74-year-old apologized to her several times and emphasized that she only wanted to help her son because of his financial difficulties.
The 54-year-old trained industrial clerk says he has been self-employed since the mid-1990s and most recently worked in a Heidelberg hotel. Twice, in 2009 and 2011, he was attacked on the way home from work. The second time he suffered several broken bones in his face and was unable to continue his professional activity afterwards. Since 2012, he has been living on a disability pension of around 1,600 euros. From this money he had to pay a rent of 700 euros as well as almost 600 euros in maintenance costs for his two children. The pension money was not enough to cover the monthly costs. Rental income from an apartment in Heidelberg had recently stalled due to the corona.
Both defendants confessed and admitted that they had pulled the scam together for years. Until the 74-year-old mother drew a line in 2018, in her own words “plagued by a bad conscience”. “I’m very, very sorry for what I did,” emphasized the 74-year-old. And her son also let it be known through his lawyer that he regretted the fraud.
Judge Englert-Biedert explained that this admission of guilt was just as much taken into account as the fact that both of the defendants were previously without entries in the federal central register. The penalty for such fraud in particularly serious cases provides for a prison sentence of between six months and ten years. In this respect, the two got away well. Both the 74-year-old mother and her 54-year-old son said they would accept the verdict and not appeal it.
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