This is the incredible moment his family lawyer dragged the son of Michael Schumacher’s alleged blackmailer out while giving a clumsy interview about his father’s case.
Former bodyguard Marcus Fritsche, 53, is on trial alongside his computer expert son Daniel Lins, 30, and his friend Yilmaz Tozturkan, also 53, after being accused of trying to extort 12 million pounds to the Schumacher family, who have been searching to honor the legendary racing driver following a life-changing accident he suffered while skiing in the French Alps in 2013.
The trio are said to have demanded the money after Fritsche was fired from his job at the racing ace’s Swiss home in 2021, but not before taking 1,500 images, 200 videos and extensive medical notes with him.
The Schumachers have been incredibly protective of Michael since his accident and have not released any photos or interviews about him since the incident.
During an interview outside the courtroom, one of Fritsche’s sons was seen being dragged away from a television interview.
The son, named by Bild as Noah L., told Welt, a German broadcaster: “Blackmail is when I threaten someone with violence. But if I come to you now and say, “I have something here, do you want to buy it?”, that’s not blackmail.
‘In my opinion, this was a sales pitch, agreed with lawyers and contracts. In my opinion, it was not blackmail.
Adding that he believed his father’s pretrial detention was “a little excessive,” the family’s lawyer, Hartmut Moyzio, was seen dragging the son out of the frame and into the courtroom.
The son told Welt, a German broadcaster: ‘Blackmail is when I threaten someone with violence. But if I come to you now and say, “I have something here, do you want to buy it?”, that’s not blackmail.
Formula One world champion Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher (left) poses in Madonna di Campiglio with his wife Corinna on January 16, 2003.
The son’s interview took place despite Fritsche reportedly telling the Wuppertal District Court: “I take responsibility.” I did that stupid thing.
According to the German outlet Heute, he turned to the lawyer representing the Schumacher family and said: “Please tell the family that I am very sorry.”
Schumacher’s representative, Sabine Kehm, 60, told the court that she was the one who was called about the blackmail plot.
“I got a call and it was a number we didn’t recognize, so at first we didn’t respond, like we usually do, to unrecognized numbers,” he said.
“But he kept calling and calling, so I finally answered, and it was a man who said he had pictures of Michael and said if the family didn’t want them posted on the dark web, he could help.”
“He said he was an intermediary and that we would have to pay 15 million euros. He said the money was for the photographs and his intermediary service.”
The material arrived via a secure email address Lins had created for his father in June this year, to Schumacher’s office at his family home in Gland, Switzerland and police were alerted and the trio arrested two weeks later. .
Mrs Kehm said: “I recognized them as private photographs and when I saw them I thought they could only have come from an employee of ours.”
Fritsche allegedly recruited his old friend Yilmaz Tozturkan (pictured) and his IT expert son to extort the staggering sum of money from the family who had hired him.
For eight years, bodyguard Markus Fritsche had exclusive access to the most intimate aspects of the legend’s medical procedures.
Markus Fritsche (left), Daniel Lins (fourth right in black turtleneck) and Yilmaz Tozturkan (behind) in court today
“I was sure it had to be someone in our inner circle who worked for us, I suspected from the first moment that it was someone who no longer worked for us.”
Mrs Kehm described how a nurse who cared for Schumacher after his accident “seemed to get on very well with Markus Fritsche”.
He added: “I remember I used to see Fritsche and this particular nurse talking together.
“But eventually she left, we had problems with her, we had problems with the way care was provided.”