adminMUNICH, Aug 4 (Bernama-dpa) — A former mayor in southern Germany has been fined €7,200 (US$8,200) for secretly monitoring his secretary with a hidden video camera in the town hall, German Press Agency (dpa) reported, citing a court ruling on Tuesday.
A court sentenced the 36-year-old former mayor of the small Bavarian town of Reichling to 90 daily fines of €80 each. The sentence remains just below the threshold at which a criminal conviction is entered on a person’s record under German law.
Court president Alexander Kessler described the case as “unbelievable,” saying the relatively lenient sentence was possible only because the former mayor had reached a victim-offender settlement with his former employee shortly before the verdict.
Under that agreement, the former local politician will pay the woman €10,000 in compensation for pain and suffering.
The Landsberg am Lech district court heard that the mayor had installed a camera beneath his secretary’s desk, allowing him to monitor her, visitors to her office, and telephone conversations. Video and audio were streamed to his mobile phone. He also made recordings.
The surveillance went undetected for about a year before it was uncovered in October 2025. Police subsequently searched both the town hall and the mayor’s home.
The scandal prompted the mayor to forgo seeking a second term in local elections held in March.
The former mayor admitted installing the camera, saying he did not trust his secretary because she supported a political rival. He said he believed his reception area had become a “meeting place for the opposition.”
“That was wrong,” he told the court, acknowledging that his conduct was unworthy of a mayor.
He also apologised to his former secretary and to the residents of the town of about 1,700 people.
— BERNAMA-dpa
