Till Lindemann Sues News Outlet Over Potential Forgery and Fraud While Covering Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Just 24 hours ago, German industrial metal outfit Rammstein issued a statement thanking their fans for their continued support, despite having to constantly deal with allegations of allegedly predatory and abusive behavior towards women by their frontman Till Lindemann. Over the last year, they stood by their guy and maintained the band’s innocence, but now it’s time for the embattled vocalist to go on the offensive.
This past Friday, Lindemann’s legal representation at Schertz Bergmann issued a press release announcing that they intended to file a criminal complaint with Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office against executives at the German news outlet Der Spiegel. In their complaint, they allege that the news outlet falsified documents and attempted to commit trial fraud.
According to the Simon Bergmann, of Schertz Bergmann, affidavits provided Spiegel were missing pages and presented different versions of certain documents over the course of the lawsuit. In those different versions, the recollections of the women allegedly involved changed from one version to the next, the lawyers allege.
Their statement is as follows:
“Under the headings Götterdämmerung and Sex, Macht, Alkohol — Was die jungen Frauen aus der Row Zero berichten [Sex, power, alcohol, what the young women from row zero report] in its issue of 10 June 2023 (print and online), SPIEGEL reported on allegations of various women against Till Lindemann.
“With the judgement handed down in the appeal proceedings on 19 July 2024, the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court confirmed Hamburg Regional Court’s interim injunction on the core allegations issued on 14 July 2023. Accordingly, SPIEGEL is still prohibited from arousing the suspicion that Till Lindemann drugged women or had them drugged at Rammstein concerts with KO drops or or drugs in order to enable him to perform sexual acts on the women.
“In the injunction proceedings, SPIEGEL submitted two affidavits in its rejoinder to the Regional Court from 28 June 2023, from women named ‘Zoe’ and ‘Sophie W.’ in the article. ‘Zoe’s’ affidavit had the peculiarity that it began on the penultimate page with a sentence that was not continued on the next page. This page contained solely the witness’s signature, so that it had to be assumed that individual pages of the affidavit had been removed or replaced (see our press release of 15 May 2024).
“Although this irregularity had already been criticised at the hearing before the Regional Court on 25 August 2023, SPIEGEL did not respond thereto until a week before the hearing in the appeal proceedings and submitted two previously unknown affidavits. Thereby, SPIEGEL had to concede that the originally submitted affidavits were not from ‘Zoe’ and ‘Sophie W.’. Due to an oversight by its own legal counsel and its secretariat different versions had been mixed up during the submission of the affidavits, said SPIEGEL.
“The different versions of ‘Zoe’s’ affidavits differ significantly from each other, especially concerning her described recollection of the encounter with our client. In addition, in the proceedings, as well as accompanying the proceedings, SPIEGEL repeatedly defended its reporting with the argument that affidavits have a high degree of credibility due to the criminal penalty involved. In word-against-word cases, they should be sufficient to justify reporting on suspicion.
“In so far as it has now been established that two affidavits were not actually rendered as submitted, this is a matter that must be clarified by the criminal prosecution authorities. Our client will therefore file a criminal complaint with Hamburg Public Prosecutor’s Office against SPIEGEL executives for falsification of documents and attempted trial fraud.”
For those that don’t remember, multiple women made allegations about Lindemann regarding his backstage behavior during what was called Row Zero parties. Legal proceedings against the Rammstein vocalist started after an Irish woman named Shelby Lynn went online to claim that she was drugged at the Rammstein show in Vilnius, Lithuania. According to her recollection of events, she said she was introduced to Lindemann, who served shots of tequila to Lynn and the other women present. She noted at the time that she’s not sure if it happened then, but she believed her drink may have been spiked, since she claimed she was a stumbling mess for the rest of the night.
Her allegations also included a situation where she was brought to a side room to be with Lindemann who allegedly expressed wanting to have sex with her during the show’s intermission, but she refused, resulting in a reportedly angry Lindemann. She then said she somehow wound up at her hotel at the end of the night with bruises she didn’t remember having prior to allegedly being drugged.
After some effort, lawyers at Schertz Bergmann managed to block any further reporting on the allegations through legal injunction. Eventually, all of those allegations and any legal proceedings handled by German prosecutors were eventually dropped.
As previously stated, Rammstein’s camp has resoundingly denied the allegations, having said in the past that they could “rule out the possibility that what is being claimed took place in our environment.”
