Late one December night, police caught a man trying to push a stolen Porsche into a rented truck. The truck driver became suspicious and called the police. They arrived within minutes and discovered that in addition to the Porsche, there were three other valuable cars in the warehouse ready to be exported to Dubai via the port of Antwerp. A check of the chassis numbers revealed that all four cars had been stolen in Germany earlier that year.
In cases where the police find someone with stolen goods - but there is no way to prove that the person would have stolen the items themselves - the prosecution often prosecutes for intentional or culpable homicide. So too in this case. In the first instance, the prosecution blamed the business owner for knowing that the cars were stolen and in the second instance, the business owner at least "reasonably should have suspected" that cars were locked.
Because the cars were exclusive expensive models, had no license plates, were brought in at night and were being worked on at night, the man should have suspected something was wrong, according to the District Attorney. The prosecutor added that the man was sweating and stuttering when police arrived on scene and found it suspicious that his phone's battery suddenly went dead when he wanted to show the car papers. Papers that later turned out to be fake.
At the hearing, the defense raised the defense that the shed lessor went through an established investigation protocol when renting out storage space. This investigation included checking car keys and car papers. The entrepreneur also insisted on having personal contact with the potential tenant to see if he could trust him. According to the entrepreneur, the absence of license plates was in keeping with the preparation for export, and that he received cars late at night - and dragged them around with sweat on his forehead - he did so out of customer friendliness. At the hearing, he still showed the documents in his phone and explained why he thought they were genuine.
The court concluded that there was insufficient evidence of intent, but that in itself there was sufficient legal evidence of the entrepreneur's guilt. However, the court lacked conviction that the man was actually guilty of the fencing and therefore acquitted him. Given that the entrepreneur was therefore unjustly detained at the police station for two nights, the defense is preparing a request for damages.
