Florian Teichtmeister
On 13 January 2023, 43-year-old Austrian actor Florian Teichtmeister was charged with possession of child pornography. On 5 September 2023, Teichtmeister pleaded guilty and the Vienna Regional Court sentenced him to a two-year suspended prison sentence for possessing and processing child sex abuse images after further investigation found that about 47,500 of the 76,000 child sexual abuse files he owned show children under the age of 14. The court also ruled that Teichtmeister must undergo therapy and regularly submit to drug tests, facing placement in a center for mentally ill offenders if he violates these conditions. Teichtmeister accepted the verdict and refrained from appealing. A forensic psychiatrist diagnosed Teichtmeister's disorder as "severe and persistent", with his cocaine addiction, alcohol consumption, and tendency to cope with stress by viewing child pornography considered as risk factors and a high probability of relapse.
Following the scandal and public outrage, the Austrian government tightened the penalties for acquiring, possessing and passing on or trading in depictions of child sexual abuse, which became known as "Lex Teichtmeister" ("The Teichtmeister Law"). However, it could not be retroactively applied in Teichtmeister's case.
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