After the death of a neighbor from COVID-19, an Austrian woman has been fined and given a suspended sentence for grossly negligent homicide, her second pandemic-related conviction in a year, The Associated Press reported.
The 54-year-old woman was found guilty of fatally infecting her neighbor with COVID-19 in 2021 and was sentenced last Thursday to four months’ suspended imprisonment and ordered to pay an 800-euro fine, about $886, according to the report, which cited the Austrian news agency APA.
The victim, a cancer patient, was said to have died of pneumonia that was caused by the coronavirus. The victim’s family told the court “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,” the report said.
The woman denied the meeting saying she “was too sick to get out of bed that day” and believed she had bronchitis, according to the report. It said her doctor told police that after she’d tested positive with a rapid test, she told him she “certainly won’t let herself be locked up.”
An expert testified a virological report showed that the virus DNA matched the woman and the deceased, proving the defendant “almost 100% transmitted it,” according to the report.
“I feel sorry for you personally — I think that something like this has probably happened hundreds of times,” the judge was reported to have said Thursday. “But you are unlucky that an expert has determined with almost absolute certainty that it was an infection that came from you.”
The verdict isn’t considered final and the victim’s and defendant’s names were not released due to Austrian privacy rules, the AP said.
Last summer, the woman was convicted of a COVID-related offense and sentenced to three months’ suspended imprisonment for intentionally endangering people through communicable diseases. At that time, she was acquitted on the grossly negligent homicide charge.