At the beginning of 2021, according to a representative of the Purbach parish, it was noticed that money from the offering box was missing.
This could be seen from the candle consumption: 60 cents per candle should end up in the offering box.
When the thefts didn’t stop, the decision was made to install a surveillance camera, the parish representative reported.
In autumn 2021, a woman could actually be seen on the video recordings, who was handling the offering box with tweezers and apparently fishing out coins and banknotes.
This woman had to appear in court on Monday this week for aggravated theft.
Defendants admitted to theft
She was accused of stealing a total of 600 euros from the offering box from January to October 2021.
“It’s true that I was there,” said the woman. “But it wasn’t 15 times and it wasn’t 600 euros.”
She was only four times in the church and got a total of 45 euros from the offering box.
In the information about her person, the native Hungarian had stated that she was unemployed. She does not receive unemployment benefits and lives on a little money that she inherited from her father.
At the end of August she received a fine of 200 euros because she was not registered in Austria. “Then I went stealing,” said the accused.
Judge Karin Lückl offered her a diversion. If the woman pays a fine of 360 euros, the case against her will be dropped.
