“I feel sorry for you personally -- I think that something like this has probably happened hundreds of times," the judge said Thursday. "But you are unlucky that an expert has determined with almost absolute certainty that it was an infection that came from you.”
While the judge issued the sentence Thursday, APA reported that the verdict isn't yet final. The names of the victim and defendant were not released in line with Austrian privacy rules.
The woman was convicted of a COVID-related offense last summer, APA reported. The agency said she was sentenced to three months’ suspended imprisonment for intentionally endangering people through communicable diseases. But she was acquitted on the grossly negligent homicide charge at that time.
This week, the judge heard statements from the deceased's family, who said there had been contact in a stairwell between the neighbors on Dec. 21, 2001 — when the defendant would already have known she had COVID-19. But she denied the meeting, saying she was too sick to get out of bed that day. She also said she believed she had bronchitis, which she typically gets every year.
But the woman's doctor told police that the defendant had tested positive with a rapid test and told him that she “certainly won’t let herself be locked up" after the result.