A Berlin court sentenced a 69-year-old man to 12 years for drugging and raping 14 women he met online. Prosecutors are probing offences against 44 more.
BERLIN: A German court jailed a serial rapist Wednesday who drugged, sexually abused and filmed 14 women in a case where prosecutors were investigating possible offences against another 44 women.
The 69-year-old Berlin man was sentenced to 12 years in prison for repeatedly drugging and raping the women he had met on online dating platforms.
Presiding judge Jakob Weber said the man, an electrician by profession, had met his victims online before luring them back to his apartment and spiking their drinks to sedate them.
He took photos and videos of his victims and meticulously stored the images in folders “as if in a trophy cabinet,” Weber said.
It could not be proven that he had distributed the material to others.
The court said the man initially presented himself to the women as a “perfectly normal, friendly man” and gained their trust through skilful manipulation, claiming at times to be a police officer or helicopter pilot.
The man was found guilty of 22 counts of aggravated rape involving 14 women.
But prosecutors were investigating possible offences he committed against 44 other women.
The Bild daily partially named the man as Frank S. and said he had confessed to the 22 rapes between 2016 and 2022, targeting women mostly aged in their 50s and 60s.
The court agreed to the prosecution’s request for a preventive detention order, meaning he could be kept in jail past the end of his sentence if he is still deemed a threat to the public.
A demonstration in solidarity with the man’s victims was planned outside the court on Wednesday afternoon under the name “shame must change sides”.
The slogan echoes the words of Gisele Pelicot, who became a feminist hero during a mass rape trial in France two years ago in which she waived her right to anonymity.
Her then-husband Dominique was found guilty of secretly drugging her for years and inviting scores of men to rape her while she was unconscious.
