German man gets 8.5 years in jail for drugging, raping wife, and sharing video of crime online for years

A German man was found guilty of drugging and raping his wife for years and sharing the videos of the crime on the internet. The case has drawn comparison with the trial of Dominique Pelicot. The 61-year-old man named Fernando P was a school janitor.

He was found guilty of abusing his wife inside the couple’s home, filming it, and then sharing it online without the victim’s knowledge. He was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in jail on Friday (Dec 19) by a court in Aachen, western Germany. An appeal may be filed against the judgment within one week, the court said.

The court said the man violated “the most intimate sphere of private life and of personal rights through image recordings in 34 cases, including in four cases in concurrence with aggravated rape and dangerous bodily harm.”

“The defendant repeatedly secretly sedated and sexually abused his wife in the marital home,” the court said in a statement, adding, “He also filmed the acts and made the recordings available to other users in group chats and on internet platforms.”

In 2024, Hamburg-based investigative journalists found evidence of a man who had shared videos on an adult website allegedly showing the drugging and raping of his wife for 14 years. But that man was never charged; he passed away in 2024.