The District Court in Ried, Upper Austria, sentenced a man to four years in prison , who allegedly ordered sexual services from underage girls in the Philippines in online chats, the Austrian news agency APA reported, quoted by BTA.
The man is accused of rape and sexual abuse of minors. The 54-year-old Austrian man is also said to have paid to watch the rape of a 15-year-old girl being carried out on camera. The verdict is not final.
According to the prosecutor, the electrician, who has no criminal record, is married and has a grown daughter, initially had relatively innocent conversations with women in the Philippines and watched live broadcasts. A local female contact recognized that he was apparently interested in children and offered him child abuse on camera. For four years, the man is said to have conducted real-time chats and received photos in exchange for money, eventually offering to rape a 15-year-old girl on camera and for him to watch the video live. The man justified that it was “just for fun”. According to the prosecutor, however, he was aware that the pimp would put into practice what he defined as a frivolous statement.
The pedophile network was exposed during an international investigation. The woman has already received a long prison sentence and four children have been saved from her network. The Austrian was arrested in 2023 and is currently in custody. According to his defense attorney Andreas Mauhart at the time, he “found it more like a computer game” and he did not know “that this is a reality in another place”. His client has confessed and is going to therapy.
„Now I can say that I can be a disgusting [person]”, the defendant himself stated, saying that he realized “what children are subjected to”. At the same time, he claims that he was not serious about committing the rape. The woman in the Philippines sent him the video of the rape without being asked. “I wrote this, but I never wanted it to be done,” he claimed to the prosecutor's surprise, because in this case, the videos were sent to the accused by force. “How could you believe that this was fiction?“ said the prosecutor.
The length of the punishment is from one to ten years, and the Austrian's sentence is four years in prison. The defense and prosecution did not make a closing statement, so the verdict is not final.