SCHUEY PLOT
Michael Schumacher ‘blackmailers’ who tried to leak 1,500 pics of stricken star & extort £12m from family go on trial
Schumacher's wife Corinna has filed a motion to protect the F1 legend
THREE thugs who allegedly orchestrated a £12million blackmail plot against Michael Schumacher and his family are set to go on trial today.
The extortionists have been accused of threatening the Ferrari star's family and conspiring to leak private pictures of him on the dark web.
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The photos were part of a cache of 1500 computer files including personal videos, medication lists and the contents of Schumacher's patient file, reports.
They were stolen by a former security guard who worked for the Schumacher family.
All three accused are set to appear before a judge at the Wuppertal District Court.
Schumacher's wife Corinna, 55, has filed a motion to protect her husband, which will allow her to exclude the public from the trial if Schumacher’s current state of health is discussed.
more on the f1 legend
The F1 star, who hasn't been seen or heard from for over a decade after a horror ski crash, has been looked after by his close-knit family since the accident.
The seven-time world champion's family have kept his health a guarded secret for years.
Among the men accused of the plot are Yilmaz Toztürkan, 53, a former bouncer at the large Grey nightclub in Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg.
Toztürkan is thought to have initiated the extortion, by calling the Schumacher family and claiming to act as a middleman for other parties.
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He revealed he had two hard drives filled with the sporting legend's medical records and private pictures - and threatened to leak them on the dark net, it is alleged.
He is said to have 16 prior convictions, including fraud, theft, and assault.
And his son, Daniel, 30, is also accused of supporting him in threatening the family by setting up an encrypted Gmail account and transmitting files.
The third accused is Fritsche, 53, who is said to be the mastermind of the sickening plot.
Schuey’s family awarded £170k damages over AI-generated ‘chat with F1 star’
Initially named Markus F due to German laws, Fritsche worked for Schumacher's family as a security guard for almost five years.
He allegedly stole two hard drives of medical data said to contain the health records of the motorsport legend before selling the data to Toztürkan.
Fritsche has been charged with aiding and abetting extortion and violating personal privacy.
He has two prior convictions, including fraud in 127 cases, and in this case, he is charged with
If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Fritsche was allowed inside the famous Schumacher inner circle for upwards of eight years as Michael's wife Corinna felt he was a trusted aide.
Earlier this year, the relationship drastically declined as Corinna was forced to sack him due to changes to her husband's care plan.
This allegedly turned him bitter as he started to hatch a plan to extort the Schumacher family.
Schumacher's family contacted the Swiss authorities to file a report about the alleged blackmail plot, with Swiss police then working alongside German cops to investigate the case.
Cops arrested Fritsche, along with Yilmaz and his son Daniel L. for the alleged blackmail plot earlier this year.
Authorities said they were able to track down the alleged extortionists through "technical measures".
Senior public prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert, spokesman for the Wuppertal public prosecutor's office, said: "After the advanced investigations, we currently assume that the accused son may have acted more as an accomplice."
The Schumacher family have been tormented over Michael's health in the past.
In 2016, a 25-year-old man known as Hüseyin B sent a threatening email to Corinna targeting the couple's children.
The mum-of-two quickly passed on the email to the police who swiftly tracked down the painter.
After being arrested, the thug was sent to court where a judge sentenced him to a year and nine months behind bars.
The perpetrator was reportedly caught after he told Corinna to send him the money to his personal bank account - something the police easily traced back.
In May, the Schumacher family were awarded £170,000 in compensation after a magazine published a fake AI-generated interview with the racing legend.
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German publication Die Aktuelle claimed to have secured a “world exclusive” with the severely injured Ferrari great last April despite Michael not being seen publicly since his 2013 skiing accident.
In a two-page spread, promoted with a picture of Schumacher, it claimed the seven-time F1 champ had said: "My life has totally changed."
What happened to Michael Schumacher?
MICHAEL Schumacher’s life was hanging by a thread 10 years ago as medics tried desperately to keep him alive after a tragic skiing crash that left him with horrific brain injuries.
The F1 legend was given the best possible treatment as he was put into a medically induced coma, had his body temperature lowered and underwent hours of tricky operations on his brain.
Back in 2013, the retired seven-time world champion and his then 14-year-old son set off on the Combe de Saulire ski run in the exclusive French resort of Meribel.
Footage from his helmet camera revealed he was not travelling at excessive speed when his skis struck a rock hidden beneath the snow.
He catapulted forward 11.5ft and crashed into a boulder head first that split his helmet into two and left him needing to be airlifted to hospital for two life-saving operations.
At one point his family were told to brace themselves for the worst case scenario as the situation was much worse than originally believed.
At the time, medics said Schumacher was likely to stay in an induced coma for at least 48 hours as his body and mind recovered.
But the coma ended up lasting 250 days - more than eight months.
After he woke up in June 2014, he was discharged from the hospital and sent to his home in Lake Geneva to get further treatment.
Since then his wife Corinna and his inner circle of friends have expertly avoided almost anything leaking out about his health status.
Only small amounts of information have been released including reports that Schumacher was in a wheelchair but can react to things around him.
In 2019, it was said that Schumacher was set to undergo breakthrough stem cell therapy in a bid to regenerate and rebuild his nervous system.
Renowned France cardiologist Dr Philippe Menasche, who had operated on him previously, was set to carry out the treatment that would see cells from his heart go to his brain.
Following the treatment at the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris, he was said to be "conscious", although few other details were given about his state.
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