Rudi Assauer and the “shadow realm of accounts” at Volksbank Ruhr
Cared for or looted? Rudi Assauer in the midst of his longtime secretary Sabine Söldner (left) and daughter Bettina Michel
Source: Reto Klar
Two and a half years after his death, the question remains where Rudi Assauer’s million dollar fortune has gone. Was the manager with dementia looted? Research once again focuses on his daughter Bettina Michel.
BAlready in August 2020, the weekly newspaper “Die Zeit” reported an initial suspicion: Rudi Assauer, the long-time manager of FC Schalke 04, had been plundered. Research focused on the daughter of the football official who was suffering from demezia and who died in 2019. Bettina Michel had looked after her father for the past seven years until his death.
In January the newspaper reported that the then 55-year-old was threatened with four days of imprisonment because she had not complied with the request to list the assets. According to the newspaper, Assauer’s assets amounted to 2.3 million euros in 2010 after deducting liabilities. Little more was left of it than an old Opel.
Now the paper presented a new report which once again suspects Bettina Michel of having got her father’s money through. The 56-year-old, it is said, has access to a shadowy realm of accounts at the Volksbank Ruhr Mitte in Gelsenkirchen. These are “eleven accounts, including two lockers”. This emerges from a list of the Federal Central Tax Office.
Joint appearance: Rudi Assauer and his daughter Bettina Michel in 2015 at a gala in Gelsenkirchen
Source: Bongarts / Getty Images / Simon Hofmann
Some of these accounts belong to Michel himself, others to her mother, and still others to Sabine Söldner (61), Assauer’s former secretary and confidante. Still other accounts belong to Mirandum GmbH. This company was founded and managed by Assauer’s former general manager: Sabine Söldner and the plastic surgeon Heinz Bull (77), a friend of Assauer. Bettina Michel could dispose of all of these accounts.
On behalf of Michel, Mercenaries and Bull, their lawyer stated that they had not embezzled any money. “All legal transactions” benefited Rudi Assauer. Lawyer Dirk Giesen had already published a reply in WELT last August. “According to the will from 2012, the assets of Mr. Assauer at that time amounted to € 1.8 million, but mainly in real estate assets,” he wrote.
Giesen’s explanation for the lost money lies in the costs that the care of Assauer caused in Bettin Michel’s terraced house: “It seems grotesque that the disputed article does not even begin to take into account that our client Bettina Michel has been loving each other for almost 7 years looked after and cared for your father. Needless to say, caring for and livelihoods have come at a significant cost over the years. In this context, it should not be left unmentioned that Mr. Assauer has had almost no income since 2008, ”said Giesen.
Who received the money from the house sale?
The real estate sales listed in the “Zeit” article would not have resulted in any significant improvement in the financial situation. Rather, “by hiding essential circumstances, the impression should also be conveyed that our clients have plundered Mr. Assauer. The reality is different. It is true that the property in Gelsenkirchen-Buer, which Mr. Assauer has lived in with Simone Thomalla since 2001, was sold. The article does not take into account the fact that the property was subject to considerable burdens. These had their origin on the one hand in securing a business loan from Mr. Assauer and in the very cost-intensive renovation work on the property. “
Rudi Assauer led the sporting fortunes at Schalke twice: first between 1981 and 1986, then again from 1993 to 2006. He is considered the architect of modern Schalke
Source: dpa
As reported by “Zeit”, the agents concluded contracts for the sale of Assauer’s real estate: in some of these contracts no account was named, so that the question arises of who received the purchase price. In the summer of 2018, a good six months before Assauer’s death, around 264,000 euros flowed into an account held by Assauer’s agent. In February 2019, when Assauer died, according to a statement of assets by his daughter Bettina Michel, there were only 15,000 euros in cash, company shares worth 25,000 euros and a ten-year-old Opel Meriva.
After “Zeit” reported suspicion of plunder in August last year, the Essen public prosecutor’s office started investigations into breach of trust. In addition to the daughter Michel, the suspects also include the former agents Mercenaries and Bull.
Bettina Michel wrote a book about living together with her father, who had Alzheimer’s disease
Source: Münchner Verlagsgruppe GmbH
Assauer and Michel, who was named the sole heir in Assauer’s will in January 2012, lived together in their row house in Herten from December 12, 2011. She took care of him. 24 hours. Usually seven days a week. For more than seven years. WELT had visited father and daughter three times during this time. Assauer made a satisfied impression, was always coiffed, and his appearance was meticulously cared for. The duo seemed well-rehearsed and harmonious.
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