V om corporate executives with villa in the south of France, classy resort St. Tropez and millions more expensive luxury yacht to remand prisoner in a small, barren cell. The fall of Thomas Middelhoff deep. In the prison food now for almost five months, the 61-year-old former top executives living in a 8.15 square meter narrow cell. According NRW Ministry of Justice only equipped with wardrobe, table, bed, shelves, sink, toilet.
And otherwise it’s gone downhill recently for Middelhoff at a breathtaking pace. Financial: The manager who once earned millions, had to sign personal bankruptcy in late March. The provisional insolvency administrator Thorsten Fuest told the news agency DPA, from the bankruptcy filing follows that Middelhoff see themselves confronted with the demands of “at least 50 creditors.”
Sick and suicidal
And probably health: The former always tanned and dynamically occurring Manager is suffering from an immune disease in custody, according to his lawyers and had treatment in the University Hospital of Essen to be laid. He is suffering from chilblain lupus, with painful, chilblain-like swellings and nodes, especially in the hands and feet. In addition, he is said to have lost more than ten kilograms of weight.
The Justice saw in the first weeks of detention even suicidal risk in the manager. Middelhoff is ultimately a “way-inexperienced man” who had always “lived in a different world,” it said in the Ministry of Justice. In the prison he was therefore placed temporarily out of “duty of care” under special surveillance.
Arcandor bankruptcy broke his neck
where Middelhoff was a few years ago as one of the most influential managers in Germany. As Bertelsmann CEO he made billions for the Gütersloher media giants, then he made a lot of money as an investment banker in London. When he took over the executive chair at the weakened department store chain Karstadt Quelle, he was greeted by the staff as a savior.
But the home in which later changed its name to Arcandor trading company proved for the manager as a turning point in his career , Middelhoff failed despite feverish efforts to achieve a sustainable recovery of the retail giant. He eventually had to vacate the executive chair in early 2009. A few months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.
And just insolvency proceedings were a snare for the manager. It was the “nitpicking” was the liquidator, which led to the Essen process in which Middelhoff was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion in the end, said the Chief Justice John Smith. In the courtroom Middelhoff was arrested in November 2014 after the verdict because of risk of flight.
The helicopter the jam flew around
In public, the image of the manager was the latest after the judgment ruined. Middelhoff became the archetypal “lifted Manager”, who was flying overhead in a helicopter over the jam at Kamen Cross, during which he headed the Group zutaumelte to the abyss.
Forget was what Middelhoff’s wife Cornelia had said in the process about the heavy workload of her husband in the Arcandor time: “He has almost always worked, always, always.” Forget the few insights that he had given his privacy: that he was a devout Catholic, have always tried to live his life according to Christian values and principles. And: What great role the family plays in his life. That he had lived in his estate in Bielefeld, not only with his wife and children, but as extended family “with my parents, my younger brother, two of my sisters in law and my father”
Last Hope. Revision
The 61-year-old is now hoping the Federal Court. He will probably decide in a few months about his revision. Even if the Supreme Court should revise the Essen judgment, it still threatening trouble. The Bochum main prosecutor for economic crime has risen against Middelhoff before the Essen district court further prosecution. They were accused of infidelity. This time it’s a prompted him 800,000 euros donation of Arcandor at the British University of Oxford – according to the prosecutor’s opinion without corresponding value for the company. Middelhoff denies the accusation.
Meanwhile, his lawyers have once again an application for habeas corpus. Your client was unable way because of his illness. The defenders make the judiciary responsible for his condition. He had been subjected to sleep deprivation for weeks in pre-trial detention, which had weakened his immune system. The former maker gets into a victim role.
Many companions see him since a long time. The former Bertelsmann CEO and Middelhoff mentor, Mark Wössner, said the “Neue Westfälische newspaper” he considered the judgment for “too hard”. In his eyes, a suspended sentence would have been more appropriate. “Mr. Middelhoff I’m personally very sorry.”
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