Why Reiner Fuellmich Was Guilty - Part 1

Introduction

Many people continue to defend Reiner Fuellmich despite the fact that he is now a convicted criminal serving a long jail sentence. 

Having written an extensive critique of the Richard D. Hall trial at the UK High Court of Justice (see Parts 1-8 of my Manchester series), it is safe to say that I am anything but biased in favour of the judiciary, and I fully understand that the judiciary can be corrupted by the deep state.

Nevertheless, having carefully reviewed the 134-page Judgment that was passed against Fuellmich, the contrasts with the Hall case are glaring and it seems clear to me, based on the evidence, that a criminal conviction was in fact the correct verdict. 

The Judgment is publicly available and can be downloaded here.

As the Judgment notes, “the evaluation of the evidence is essentially based on documents whose authenticity is not disputed and on the defendant's own statements” (p. 118). In terms of hard evidence, the case seems cut and dry. 

In contrast, Fuellmich abused the legal process when dragging out his and his lawyer’s closing statements over the course of many months, turning the trial into a platform for him to propagandise an international audience. It is remarkable how many people appear to have fallen for his performance. 

In this four-part series, I summarise the key parts of the Judgment (to which the page numbers refer), showing exactly what Fuellmich did and why it constituted embezzlement. I also go beyond the Judgment to look at wider evidence in relation to his grift, as well as his links to Scientology. I close with some reflections on the ramifications of the case for the "alt media." 

Background to the Case

The Corona Investigative Committee (CIC) was established in April 2020 at the suggestion of Wolfgang Wodarg by four lawyers, namely, Antonia Fischer, Viviane Fischer (no relation), Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, and Dr. Justus P. Hoffmann. 

According to the CIC website, the purpose of the Committee is to “investigate why federal and state governments imposed unprecedented restrictions as part of the Coronavirus response and what the consequences have been and still are for people.” Its work has proceeded through “live, multi-hour sessions” involving experts from around the world. 

The associated legal entity, formed on July 9, 2020, was the "Stiftung Corona-Ausschuss Vorschalt gUG i. G." (Corona Committee Foundation, a non-profit limited liability company in formation). The Judgment describes that entity as a “Vorgesellschaft” (“pre-incorporation company”) with no accounts of its own. 

The first mention of a donation account was on July 16, 2020 (p. 50). Donations made to the CIC were received into an escrow account controlled by “witness W,” i.e., the lawyer Tobias Weissenborn. 

The charges against Fuellmich relate to two payments made from that escrow account:

• €200,000 on November 10, 2020 (in ten instalments of €20,000 to an account belonging to his wife); and
• €500,000.00 on May 26, 2021 (to an account belonging to Fuellmich himself)

The claimed rationale for those payments was to ensure that CIC funds could not be confiscated by the State. 

In an email to Viviane Fischer dated November 7, 2020, Fuellmich wrote the following:

V, I'm putting 100,000 into [my wife’s] account and 100,000 into my account in the USA, from there it can go back to wherever it's needed at any time. Please do something similar for 100,000 or 200,000, the rest will then remain with W in escrow. I'll sign yours, you sign mine (pp. 18-19)

Weissenborn actioned the transactions, which were framed as interest-free “loan agreements,” on Fuellmich’s request. 

The same process was followed for the “loan agreement” dated May 14, 2021, whereby the pre-incorporation company, represented by Viviane Fischer, agreed to make an interest-free loan of €500,000 to Fuellmich, repayable by the end of May 2022. 

Covering both “loan agreements,” the latter contained the following clause: “As security, a mortgage of €700,000.00 is to be registered on the property of the borrower’s wife in [location redacted], CA, USA.” However, this was not subsequently implemented. No real security interests or guarantees were established for either amount (p. 20). 

In late January 2021, a €500,000 property loan which had previously been made to Fuellmich was recalled by the bank (p. 17). Fuellmich covered that loan by obtaining a separate €500,000 loan through an oral agreement with his lawyer, Marcel Templin. The money likely came from deposits made by clients in a class action lawsuit they had planned (through the Anglo-American legal system) on behalf of entrepreneurs harmed by government Covid measures in Germany. Clients wishing to file suit each paid €800.00 net (p. 17). Fuellmich and Templin were, thus, not holding their clients’ funds in escrow, but rather commingling them with Fuellmich’s private finances.  

The €500,000 loan arranged through Templin was on top of an interest-free loan of €100,000.00 that Fuellmich had obtained through Templin on November 3, 2020 (p. 17). 

The CIC escrow account, even after the initial transfers to Fuellmich’s wife and Viviane Fischer, had a balance of €1,173,166.65 before the €500,000 transfer to Fuellmich (p. 20). This implies that at least €1.5 million of public donations had been received by the CIC by May 2021, in addition to €1 million of gold purchased in early 2021, plus €25,000 per month plus VAT going to Fuellmich's law firm from January 1, 2021 to July 31, 2022.

Concealment from Antonia Fischer and Justus Hoffmann

The other two CIC lawyers, Antonia Fischer and Justus P. Hoffmann, were not informed by either Fuellmich or Viviane Fischer about the large transfers of money out of the CIC escrow account into private accounts controlled by Fuellmich, his wife, and Viviane Fischer (p. 20). 

The fact that Fuellmich told Viviane Fischer that he had obtained the consent of the other two lawyers in the above email dated November 7, 2020 (“I got the okay from J [Justus Hoffmann] and A [Antonia Fischer]”), shows that his behaviour was deliberately dishonest (pp. 23, 41). 

In the summer of 2021, Antonia Fischer and Hoffmann became concerned about the continued lack of company registration and the possibility of being held liable for the company’s donations, the amount of which was unknown to them (p. 21). When they inquired into the CIC’s financial status, they received no information from either Fuellmich or Viviane Fischer. 

Instead, they were referred to an accountant whom Fuellmich had instructed to “put the brakes on” providing information to them (pp. 21, 40). Following a remediatory Zoom call in September 2021, the accountant sent Antonia Fischer and Hoffmann an Excel spreadsheet containing a list of recipients of expenditures and the total amount paid to them only for the year 2020. The subsequent €500,000 payment to Fuellmich plus a €100,000 payment to Viviane Fischer were not included, and the €200,000 paid into Fuellmich’s wife’s account was listed without specifying a recipient, labelled simply as “external escrow account” (p. 21).

On May 25, 2022, Fuellmich and Viviane Fischer set up a new organisation, the SCA Investigative Committee UG, which was to be run solely by them, separately from Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer (p. 31)

Viviane Fischer informed Hoffmann and Antonia Fischer about the events surrounding the funds in question for the first time in August 2022, following Fuellmich’s refusal to repay €50,000 upon request. She publicly accused Fuellmich of embezzlement on September 21, 2022. 

In an email dated August 26, 2022, to Viviane Fischer and two other recipients, Fuellmich indicated that he was prepared to repay the money from the sale of his property such that it would be split equally between him and her, to spend at their own discretion on committee projects. Thus, he no longer considered repayment to the pre-incorporation company, but only wanted to accept Viviane Fischer and himself (via the SCA Investigative Committee UG) as the recipients of his repayment (p. 45). 

At a minuted shareholders' meeting on October 5, 2022, in which Fuellmich was removed as managing director and his shareholding confiscated, Hoffmann complained that he and Antonia Fischer had not been informed about the loans, to which Fuellmich replied that they had “long since been out.” When Weissenborn asked Viviane Fischer why she had not informed them, she replied that she thought Fuellmich had done so (p. 39).

Fuellmich testified that he had made the return of the funds conditional on “the two of them [Antonia Fischer and Hoffmann] no longer playing a role,” and he also spontaneously told Antonia Fischer that he had tried to deprive the pre-company of its funds. He had “dismissed” her and Hoffmann when he realized they were “nobodies” (p. 44).  

Following his fallout with Fischer, he stated in a sworn affidavit dated January 13, 2023, that he would only transfer the funds to the new entity he had founded, the International Crimes Investigative Committee (ICIC) (p. 23). He thereby claimed the right to decide who would receive the repayment (p. 45).

The Judgment gives Fuellmich the benefit of the doubt that he intended to repay the CIC funds “at some point.” However, it finds that he wanted to do so “at a time and in a manner that seemed expedient to him,” neither adhering to the content of the loan agreements nor following the wishes of the other three CIC members, from whom he did not expect any serious resistance (pp. 23, 42). 

The Judgment finds that Fuellmich had no legal right to determine that Antonia Fischer and  Hoffmann – shareholders of the pre-incorporation company – were “out.” There was no legal evidence of an asset transfer, which would have required a shareholder resolution. Furthermore, any such transfer would have breached Section 2 No. 4 (on donations) of the articles of association of the pre-incorporation company (p. 51).

“Sham Loans”

Despite the term “loan agreement” being used in public statements, the “loans” were in fact a “sham” (p. 51). Fuellmich himself recognised that their purpose was to make sure that funds were available at any time in case of account seizures, yet this would not have been possible had the money only been repaid on the due dates stipulated in the “loan” agreements (p. 58). 

Despite Fuellmich referring to his property as offering a theoretical “store of value,” the pre-incorporation company’s ability to access its funds was made dependent on his goodwill and ability to raise the money when needed. It had no legally enforceable guarantee of being able to get the money back. For example, had Fuellmich died or become incapacitated, there would have been no easy way to access the funds entrusted to him (p. 42). Had he become insolvent, there would have been no way to assert a right of segregation (p. 51). 

Fuellmich claimed that he could have borrowed more money if necessary and could have repaid the money by selling his house (p. 24). However, the Judgment finds it “irrelevant whether acquaintances or his wife would have been willing to lend him the money against security in the form of mortgages.” Rather, it was the responsibility of “the perpetrator himself” to keep the funds liquid (p. 55). 

As a lawyer, Fuellmich must have been aware of the illegality of his actions (p. 59).

PART 2 will look in greater depth at the specific legal violations committed by Fuellmich.

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