Fler does not want to hear the verdict for himself. After he last stormed out of the hall in a rage, justice was pronounced before the district court in Berlin for various crimes without him. The rapper gets away with a suspended sentence.
While the Berlin rapper Fler himself was conspicuous by his absence, the district court in Tiergarten sentenced him to one year and four months on probation. The 40-year-old was found guilty of assault, insult, threats, property damage and public incitement to commit crimes. In addition, the musician has to pay 10,000 euros to a non-profit organization. The sentence included a now final ten-month suspended sentence, which was imposed in March 2021 for insulting the rapper, among other things.
Fler, whose real name is Patrick Losensky, confessed a week ago on the first day of the trial and then stormed out of the room cursing a witness while he was being questioned. Lies would be told, he had exclaimed earlier. On the second day, the seat next to the defender remained empty. The court decided to continue the trial without the accused.
Two charges totaling six offenses were heard in the trial. According to the verdict, the musician had massively insulted two women on social media in early 2020. In one case, he published a picture of those affected on his account and offered 2,000 euros for her to be “brought”. That must be understood as a call to kidnap her, the verdict said. In another case, he threatened a comedian.
A few days later, in March 2020, Fler attacked and insulted a television crew that wanted to interview him when he left a store. He hit the cameraman with his fist and deliberately threw the camera on the ground.
According to the indictment, the hostility on the Internet was triggered by a post by one of the two women on a platform in which she pointed out what she believed to be misogynistic statements in the musician’s rap lyrics. The tone used by the defendant in the discourse may be common between rappers, but that doesn’t apply to communication with non-rappers, said presiding judge Franziska Bauersfeld. He made a defamatory statement.
Fler has been repeatedly convicted in the past – mostly fines were imposed on the musician for insult, threats or physical harm. In the current process, the rapper, who is known for provocations, said that he had seen himself exposed to a campaign in the social media incidents, had reacted – and had overshot the mark. He will “avoid confrontations in the future”. When he starts to insult, he tends to do it “extensively,” Fler explained. But he has now learned – “it’s best not to react at all”.
The current verdict was preceded by an agreement between the parties involved in the process. In the event of a confession, Fler was promised a total sentence of a maximum of one year and six months in prison on probation. A lawyer who represented the cameraman as a joint prosecutor saw Fler’s statement as “hardly a remorseful confession in the sense of the prosecution”. The rapper had shown himself to be a “disinterested defendant”.
Judge Bauersfeld said it was a genuine confession from the court’s perspective. It was also taken into account that the rapper paid the cameraman a compensation of 10,000 euros. The sentence imposed could be suspended on probation because of a positive social prognosis. There are also no new criminal charges against the musician.
The public prosecutor had asked for one and a half years of imprisonment on probation. The defense attorney said his client had defended himself with exaggerated stylistic devices. He regrets that. The attorney made no specific request. The verdict is not yet legally binding.
