By Nils Kottmann
Fine dinners, luxury limousines with massage chairs and the finest Italo parquet on the executive floor: As RBB boss, Patricia Schlesinger (62) is said to have treated herself to a life of luxury at the expense of the contributors…
Even after her expulsion, the Berlin scandal director insists on lavish payments without shame. But the RBB is fighting back: According to “Business Insider” (like BZ, it belongs to Axel Springer SE), the broadcaster Schlesinger wants to cancel the company pension. It’s almost 220,000 euros per year!
Normally, company pension schemes are secure even if employees are terminated without notice. But in the Schlesinger case, the RBB lawyers believe that they can prove that the ex-director has committed enough of a crime to cancel her claims.
► Not only that: The lawyers believe that Schlesinger’s misconduct was serious enough to forfeit her entitlement to a pension. In front of the Berlin district court, the ex-director is demanding 18,384.54 euros per month from her former broadcaster.
According to “Business Insider,” the RBB lawyers have compiled a list of Schlesinger’s scandals for the court. It is so long that it has been divided into different complexes. “I have never experienced this extent before,” says a labor lawyer familiar with the process on the news platform.
Schlesinger allegedly responsible for the “economic decline of the RBB”
► As a reminder: During her term of office (2016 to 2022), Patricia Schlesinger treated herself to an Audi A8 with massage seats as a company car worth almost 150,000 euros. She had the executive floor renovated for 650,000 euros. The Italian parquet alone cost 17,000 euros.
In her Schöneberg apartment, the scandal director repeatedly hosted fancy dinners with Berlin celebrities and had the broadcaster pay for the private entertainment. Just like private trips to Tel Aviv, San Francisco, Oslo, Paris or Tokyo, on which she was occasionally accompanied by her husband Gerhard Spörl and their daughter.
Schlesinger was one of the top earners among public broadcasters. She collected more than 350,000 euros per year from RBB.
The broadcaster accuses the ex-director of “serious violations of the principles of thrift and economy,” as the lawyers write in their scandal collection. She is to blame for the “economic decline of the RBB”. In 2020 the station made 79 million euros, in 2021 it was 68 million euros.
The RBB not only wants to cut off Schlesinger’s pension and company pension, but is also suing her for damages of at least 30,000 euros. The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating the ex-director, her husband and the ex-head of the RBB board of directors, Wolf-Dieter Wolf, on suspicion of infidelity and accepting benefits.
Because: Wolf – in his role as chief controller of the Berlin trade fair – is said to have given Schlesinger’s man orders. Spörl, a former “Spiegel” journalist, received 72,000 euros for media coaching.
Patricia Schlesinger’s lawyers have so far rejected all allegations. One of her lawyers said about the private trips that were allegedly billed for business purposes: “The allegations are without exception false and in some cases constructed in an almost bizarre and embarrassing way in order to somehow justify the unjustified dismissal of the client after the fact.”
There is still no end to the legal dispute in sight. The legal fees for RBB already amount to two million euros.