Hamburg influencer convicted of prison sentence for secret videos
Hamburg district court sentenced a 33-year-old influencer to imprisonment after he filmed people without their knowledge and published the videos on Instagram and TikTok.
Court sends Hamburg influencer to prison
Hamburg district court has sentenced a 33-year-old influencer to a custodial sentence. He had secretly filmed people and published the recordings on his Instagram and TikTok accounts under the name "langlebepapa", according to ndr.de. The judge refused to suspend the sentence — partly due to twelve previous convictions and because the defendant had not stopped even after an earlier conviction.
Victims informed about videos only afterwards
The defendant proceeded systematically: he placed people in compromising situations, filmed them covertly and then posted the scenes online. For example, he posed as an alleged food inspector in Asian takeaways, dipped his finger in storage containers and commented on the appearance of staff members. In another case, he demanded that a 70-year-old toilet attendant on the Reeperbahn provide a receipt showing VAT for 50 cents — all secretly recorded.
The woman appeared as a witness in court on Friday, supported by a walking frame. "I am still angry," she said in the courtroom. "He cannot just film me and publish it." Thousands of followers had watched the videos. Those affected only found out afterwards that they had been the main characters in internet videos.
Cosmetic surgeon filmed secretly during consultation
Among those harmed is a cosmetic surgeon who also testified as a witness on Friday. The defendant had enquired at his private practice about vaginal tightening and secretly filmed the conversation using glasses and a mobile phone. He subsequently edited the video in such a way that it could appear that the doctor performs such procedures at a man's behest without the patient's consent. "I would never do anything like that," the surgeon said in court. When the judge asked how he felt about the video, he replied: "That was really shocking."
The prosecutor put the defendant's pattern succinctly: "The people in the videos are cornered and degraded. Decency alone dictates that one does not do such a thing."
Earlier fine had no effect
As recently as June, another district judge sentenced the 33-year-old to a fine totalling 3,000 euros for similar videos. At that time he appeared self-assured and simply continued after the verdict. In the current proceedings, he appeared considerably more restrained: he insisted that he had by now realised that he must not secretly film videos and publish them without permission, apologised to all those affected and offered them compensation right there in the courtroom.
An earlier statement also caught up with him. In another proceeding, he had grinned and explained that his goal was to have ten children with ten different women. The district judge asked him directly about this on Friday — his response: "No," he had not meant that seriously.
Judge: "unsocial media"
The judge believed the defendant's remorse but nonetheless did not suspend the sentence. The decisive factors were the twelve previous convictions and the continued behaviour after the June verdict. "You simply had not grasped it," said the judge. He described the case as an example of the brutalisation of so-called social media: "One really ought to speak of unsocial media."
The accounts have since been cleaned up — the defendant removed all compromising posts, which the State Criminal Investigation Office verified between the trial dates. However, the videos have not completely disappeared: other users have opened similarly named accounts and shared original videos from "langlebepapa" there.
Spectator films secretly in courtroom
On the sidelines of the proceedings, a telling scene occurred: the defendant's defence counsel addressed a spectator who had secretly filmed his client in the courtroom on the first day of trial and published the video — in a trial concerned with secretly filmed videos, no less.
Source: Google News AT — Crime (de)