A nightclub bouncer who was part of a plot to blackmail Michael Schumacher for £12m has been jailed after being convicted of conspiring with two other men to obtain private footage of the motor racing legend.
Yilmaz Tozturkan, 53, was sentenced to three years in prison, with his son, Daniel Lins, 30, an IT expert, given a six-month suspended sentence.
Schumacher’s former bodyguard Markus Fritsche, 53, was also on trial in Germany after hard drives containing confidential pictures, videos and medical records were stolen from a computer. Fritsche was given a two-year suspended sentence at Wuppertal district court.
The trial, which began in December, heard that more than 1,500 images, videos and confidential medical records were downloaded from a computer.
The sensitive data was given to Fritsche, who passed them to Tozturkan. The latter told the Schumacher family he would “upload them on to the dark web” unless money was paid, the court heard.
Tozturkan had denied blackmail and insisted they were offering the family a “business deal”.
Before the verdict was announced, Tozturkan, who is in jail on an unrelated crime, told the court: “I’m very sorry and ashamed for what I have done. It was a very disgusting thing. I take full responsibility.”
During the trial, the family expressed concerns that one hard drive containing sensitive material had not been recovered despite repeated searches of the defendants’ properties.
Thilo Damm, the Schumacher family lawyer, said they planned to appeal against the “lenient sentences”.
Damm added: “We do not agree with everything the court said. You can rest assured that we will exhaust all legal possibilities at our disposal.
“We don’t know where the missing hard drive is … so there is the possibility of another threat through the back door.”
Schumacher, 56, a seven-time F1 world champion, has not been seen in public since a ski accident in 2013 in the French Alps where he suffered severe head injuries.
He was put in an induced coma and brought home in September 2014, with his medical condition since kept private by his family.
