A Portuguese man wanted to rape a woman in the Altstetten indoor pool. Now the district court has ruled and criticized the expulsion from the state.
A man boldly entered a cabin in the Altstetten indoor pool and asked a young woman to put lotion on his back.
In November 2021, a 21-year-old woman applied body lotion to herself in a changing room in the cloakroom area of the Altstetten indoor swimming pool before she wanted to get dressed. The cabin could only be closed with a curtain. Suddenly a naked man pulled the curtain aside without being asked and asked the woman for body lotion. She gave him something, but is also said to have asked him to leave. However, the man boldly entered the cabin and asked the young woman to cream his back.
The man was almost twice as old, 25 centimeters taller and significantly heavier than the woman. Since he did not let go of her, the woman – according to the indictment – reluctantly put cream on his neck, but again asked him to go away. He didn’t do this, she tried to push him away several times. She also claims to have called for help. However, the man is said to have tried to kiss her, touched her buttocks and breasts and tried to rape her. Finally he let go of her. The woman called the police from the indoor pool. The man was then held in custody for two days.
Father of three
Now the 41-year-old Portuguese is a suspect before the Zurich District Court. He is married and a father of three, works in the car trade and, according to his own statements, owes more than 110,000 francs. He came to Switzerland at the age of twelve. He and his wife have C residency permits. They have accumulated four prior convictions, none of which have resulted in prison: insurance fraud, traffic violations, gun violations, and pornography. A further investigation into alleged animal cruelty to a parrot is pending.
When questioned in court, the accused presented the incident in the indoor swimming pool in a completely different and harmless way: he met the young woman that day in the mixed sauna and had spoken to her two or three times beforehand. He got the impression that she was interested in him. “I really meant 100 percent that she wanted something from me,” he asserts.
That’s why he followed her into the dressing room. There she accepted him and voluntarily creamed his back. He then touched her a bit, but realized that she didn’t want to participate. He didn’t use any violence at all and didn’t exert any psychological pressure. When the woman did not participate, he stopped and apologized. The whole thing only took six to seven minutes. He completely denies any manipulation of her genitals.
He has already met several women in the indoor pool and really thought “that it could be a flirt,” he justifies his behavior. His wife knows about the accusation, “she has become a ‘bitzeli crazy’,” he admits, but the relationship with her is still good. His defense attorney also argues that the accused was looking for “an adventure outside of his relationship” that evening. The allegations are wrong. If the accused had done everything the indictment says, he would have had three arms. The lawyer requests an acquittal.
The prosecutor wants a conviction for attempted rape and sexual assault. He demands a fully enforceable prison sentence of 3 years and then 12 years expulsion from the country. During the investigation, the accused conveyed the image of a man who did not go to the sauna for relaxation but for sexual arousal. He behaved as if it were the most normal thing in the world to enter someone else’s dressing room. The lawyer for the traumatized victim pleads for compensation of 10,000 francs.
A usual scam of the accused?
District judge Roland Heimann formulated an uneasy assumption during the verdict: “It comes across as if this were a scam by the accused and the private prosecutor could not be the only victim,” he explains. But there were no other ads. The behavior of the accused in a public cloakroom was unabashed and of immeasurable audacity. Apparently it was “a fantasy that haunts men’s circles about how to tear women open”.
Based on the statements of the two parties involved, the case is completely clear. The court did not have the slightest doubt. The statements of the woman are very credible, realistic and factual. She didn’t exaggerate, she could have reported much worse. Her blockade and the fact that she first creamed the accused’s neck to avoid further escalation is completely understandable. A no is enough, the accused was in no way able to conclude that he was accepted.
The accused, on the other hand, repeatedly adjusted his statements, for example when his DNA was found on several parts of the woman’s body. However, these traces are not of great evidence, as the woman had the DNA on her hands after applying the lotion and was probably able to touch herself with it everywhere. For district judge Heimann, it was noticeable that the accused suddenly switched from dialect to High German “to an engraved story” during the judicial questioning when he was asked to describe the incident in free speech.
The 41-year-old Portuguese man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for attempted rape and sexual assault; 9 enforceable, 21 conditionally deferred. He can serve the 9 months in semi-captivity and continue to work. His behavior was immeasurably bold, but in terms of the use of force it was “at the lower end of the rape scale”. The victim is awarded 10,000 Swiss francs as compensation.
Judicial criticism of the expulsion from the country
When the country was expelled, the court came to a clear conclusion: It was a catalog offense and the hardship case test gave a negative result for the accused. For his family, however, the expulsion from the country is much more important than for the perpetrator himself. It is possible and justifiable for the man to continue his life in Portugal. It is not a developing country. The crime was committed in a public institution. The protection of the public outweighs the private interests of the accused.
Because the perpetrator’s family is also being punished, Heimann describes the case as an example “of the conceptual misapprehension of expulsion from the country as a measure”. In his opinion, imprisonment as a reminder would actually have been sufficient. With regard to the length of the country’s expulsion, the court accommodated the accused with 7 years. Even if the order for the expulsion from the country is visibly opposed to the SVP judge Heimann personally, he explains the decision professionally: “The court has to apply the law and not bend it.”
Judgment DG220092 of September 21, 2022, not yet final.