The child pornography trial against Austrian actor Florian Teichtmeister (43) began with descriptions of extremely brutal fantasies of abuse. Prosecutor Julia Kalmar read the relevant texts for several minutes in the Vienna district court on Tuesday, which the actor had added to the tens of thousands of files on minors that he had collected over the years. The prosecutor described the written fantasies as “paedo-sadistic”.
The actor, known from television, film and theater (“The Dead of Salzburg”, “Corsage”), confessed to having collected and partly processed the depictions of abuse. According to the public prosecutor’s office, this not only constitutes possession but also the production of child pornography. Teichtmeister faces up to three years in prison. The public prosecutor’s office demanded that the defendant be kept in a center for mentally ill perpetrators if he was found guilty.
Teichtmeister described his tendencies and actions in court as an escalating process. The abused children he looked at were getting younger and younger. Most recently, he wrote down his fantasies of rape and punishment. “It’s definitely the latest step in a growing spiral of vileness,” he said of those texts.
The investigation started after Teichtmeister’s girlfriend at the time called the police two years ago. According to the indictment, Teichtmeister acquired around 76,000 files over more than 13 years, around 47,500 of which depict children under the age of 14. Teichtmeister’s lawyer agreed with the prosecutor that his client had pedophilic and sadistic traits. Teichtmeister was driven by pornography and cocaine addiction, but is now undergoing treatment.
The process was accompanied by a small demonstration. Under the slogan “Hands off our children,” a few dozen people gathered near the court with a mock gallows.
