After the mask affair, the public prosecutor's office stopped investigating the former CDU member of the Bundestag. But things don't seem to be over for the 38-year-old yet.
Meiningen (dpa/th) - The public prosecutor's office in Meiningen is conducting a tax investigation against ex-Bundestag member Mark Hauptmann. A spokesman for the public prosecutor's office confirmed a corresponding report in the daily newspaper "Freies Wort" (Thursday). "The process has been going on for some time," he said.
It will be checked whether Hauptmann has caused tax damage to the tax authorities. According to the public prosecutor's office, this is a four to five-digit amount. In the course of the mask affair, the Thuringian public prosecutor's office had investigated the 38-year-old former CDU MP on suspicion of corruption. The case was dropped in September. Hauptmann resigned from the Bundestag in 2021.
The public prosecutor's office did not want to comment on the exact allegation in the tax investigations against the former South Thuringian CDU politician. The investigations were conducted independently in Meiningen alongside those of the Attorney General's Office, the spokesman said. According to information from the newspaper, the Gotha tax office is also said to be involved in the investigation.
Neither the law firm that represented Hauptmann during the mask investigation nor Hauptmann himself wanted to comment on the investigations by the Meiningen public prosecutor, the newspaper reported. "Please understand that neither we nor Mr. Hauptmann can or will comment on a process that is not known to Mr. Hauptmann and to us," a lawyer told the newspaper in writing.
The Thuringian public prosecutor's office announced in September that the investigation against Hauptmann on suspicion of bribery had been discontinued. There was no sufficient suspicion required for an indictment to be brought. The assets of 997,000 euros frozen in the course of the investigation have been released again.
In the course of the so-called mask affair, Hauptmann was accused of arranging corona protective masks and receiving a commission of several hundred thousand euros from a Frankfurt company. Hauptmann had always denied having enriched himself by selling masks.
In making its decision, the public prosecutor's office referred to similar cases in which both the Munich Higher Regional Court and the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had ruled that the accusation of corruption against two Bavarian politicians was not tenable. According to the case law of the Federal Court of Justice, elected representatives are essentially only guilty of bribery if they accept advantages for their voting behavior in a parliament.
