German justice on Wednesday requested the referral to court of three suspects as part of an attempted blackmail on the family of former Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher.
A 53-year-old father and his 30-year-old son, living in Wuppertal (west of Germany), are accused of trying to extract 15 million euros from Michael Schumacher’s family by threatening to publish on the darknet data that the latter did not wish to see disseminated, according to a press release from the prosecution. German justice on Wednesday requested the referral to court of these three suspects as part of an attempt to blackmail the family of the former Formula 1 champion.
The father would have purchased this data “for a 5-figure amount” from a former security agent in the service of Michael Schumacher’s family, it is added. The former security guard is accused of having copied this data without permission “at the latest when he left his post in March 2021”. These were particularly sensitive images since they showed Michael Schumacher before and after his skiing accident in 2013.
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At the end of 2013, in the French winter sports resort of Méribel, the seven-time F1 champion suffered a serious head injury. He spent almost six months in an induced coma and has since been treated at his home in Switzerland and kept away from the media.
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An almost inevitable prison sentence
On June 3 and the days that followed, the eldest of the duo of blackmailers called a family employee several times to extort the 15 million euros from her. The latter would have demanded proof that this data was indeed in his possession, which would have led the blackmailer to call his son for help to send data from a technically untraceable email address.
The eldest of the blackmailers risks between one and fifteen years in prison. His son, accused of complicity, risks a lesser sentence and is free. The former security agent of the Schumacher family must answer to two counts: complicity in an attempted blackmail on the one hand, and invasion of privacy, on the other hand. He faces a “severe” prison sentence, according to the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office, whose request for referral to trial must still be approved by the court judge.
