On 13 January 2023, 43-year-old Austrian actor was charged with possession of child pornography. On 5 September 2023, Teichtmeister pleaded guilty and received a two-year suspended prison sentence from the Vienna Regional Court for possessing and altering images involving the sexual abuse of children, after an investigation that began in August 2021 found that about 47,500 of the 76,000 child sexual abuse files he owned depict children under the age of 14. The court also ruled that Teichtmeister must undergo therapy and regularly submit to drug tests, facing placement in a center for mentally ill offenders if he violates these conditions. Teichtmeister accepted the verdict and refrained from appealing. A forensic psychiatrist diagnosed Teichtmeister's disorder as "severe and persistent", with his cocaine addiction, alcohol consumption, and tendency to cope with stress by viewing child pornography considered as risk factors and a high probability of relapse.
Following the scandal and public outrage, the Austrian government tightened the penalties for acquiring, possessing and passing on or trading in depictions of child sexual abuse, which became known as "Lex Teichtmeister" ("The Teichtmeister Law"). However, it could not be retroactively applied in Teichtmeister's case.
Background was born in Vienna, Austria on 4 November 1979. He began his acting career in 2001 and has acted in theatre, film and television. In 2004, he graduated from the Max Reinhardt Seminar drama school, where he became a teacher in 2012. Teichtmeister was a member of the Freemasons of Austria and built a temple on a private property in Langenlois, which he shared with two family members. The engravings on the temple read: "Memento mori" (Latin for "remember [that you have] to die") and "Know yourself, rule yourself and refine yourself". In 2022, Teichtmeister portrayed Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in Marie Kreutzer's historical drama film Corsage (2022).
On 18 June 2022, Austrian film director Katharina Mückstein shared an Instagram Story that read: "Tonight a perpetrator will be on stage and will be applauded. And there is nothing we can do to counter that. It's devastating. I wish all those affected good nerves. #MeToo didn't even start in Austria". No name was given, but the only event of that kind taking place in Austria that night was the premiere of Marie Kreutzer's Corsage (2022) in Vienna, which led to speculation that Mückstein was referring to someone who worked in that film. Mückstein later said that she could not name the man due to legal reasons. Mückstein's Instagram story inspired several women to share their own experiences with sexual harassment, sexism, racism, homophobia and abuses of power in the Austrian film and theatre community, which generated a lot of media attention and sparked a new wave of the MeToo movement in Austria.
Corsage director, Marie Kreutzer, told Austrian magazine Profil on 2 July 2022 that she learned about the rumors about one of the actors from Corsage "a long time ago" when the project was already underway, but as long as there were only rumors and no court-confirmed evidence, she would never remove or dismiss a staff member from the stage based on rumors, and that if there were neither concrete allegations nor a legal case against someone, she would be acting as a judge if she reacted with consequences. "There are neither concrete allegations nor those affected who have contacted authorities to articulate something concrete there. That's what makes the case so problematic. Even though I've worked very well with him and I like him, I can't put my hand on the fire for him. I do not check the reputation of my actors or my team. What lies in their past I cannot and do not want to research completely. I can only urge that official contact points be included and that all of this is not just carried out among colleagues and like-minded people. You have to take steps, not just talk about it behind closed doors. There were certainly reports about this man, but again they only came from people who were neither affected themselves nor had anything to testify directly. One should stick to the facts, because passing on rumors can seriously damage people; I appreciate Katharina Mückstein extremely for her attitude and her commitment to film politics, we are definitely on the same side. But I would definitely have chosen a different path", she said.
On 9 January 2023, Corsage lead actress and executive producer, Vicky Krieps, was asked on Instagram about the alleged abuser in the film's cast, to which she replied: "So, a feminist film made by two women should be discarded because of the misconduct of a male colleague? (Second question) Who exactly is being harmed by this? But thanks for the mansplaining — always a pleasure."
Investigation On 10 September 2021, rumors started circulating in the Austrian film and theatre industry when Austria's biggest newspaper, Kronen Zeitung, published an article reporting that "a well-known and award-winning actor" was accused, among other things, of "dangerous threats, drug abuse, beating his partner and possession of child pornography", and referred to him under the fictitious name "Peter P." because the law did not allow his real name to be mentioned in the article. The actor's ex-partner–who wanted to remain anonymous–reported him and filed a complaint in early August 2021, and the article also mentioned that the actor physically attacked and verbally threatened her for years during their relationship. Soon after that, other newspapers such as Der Standard started reporting on the case. Nobody was named at the time, but insiders quickly found out that it was , according to Austrian magazine Profil, which also stated that Mückstein's Instagram post on 18 June 2022 was meant for a different actor, and Mückstein herself later stated that she was not talking about Teichtmeister.
Teichtmeister continued to work with children while he was being investigated for possession of child pornography. In the summer of 2021, he shot the film Serviam, where he plays the father of a twelve-year-old monastery student. The police files stated that Teichtmeister may also have filmed the legs of a child on the set. In October 2021, Dieter Pochlatko, producer of the film Serviam, was informed by the lawyer of the parents of an underage actress about a photo and was asked to arrange that Teichtmeister no longer approached that actress. Teichtmeister, who portrayed Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in Corsage, was also pictured next to child actress Rosa Hajjaj–who portrayed his 9-year-old daughter in Corsage–during the film's premiere in Vienna on 18 June 2022, while investigation was still underway. Director Sebastian Brauneis–who directed Teichtmeister in the film Zauberer (2018)–said that "everyone in the industry knew who it [the rumors of possession of child pornography] was about".
On 3 June 2022, Austrian newspaper Exxpress reported that "a prominent TV commissioner" was being investigated for possession of child pornography, but that Austria's media laws protected him by not allowing his name to be revealed, but it did not protect other possible victims. "TV commissioner" was a reference to Teichtmeister's role in the television series Inspector Rex.
Charge On 13 January 2023, it was reported that 43-year-old Austrian actor Florian Teichtmeister had been charged with possession of child pornography. In the middle of Summer 2021, Teichtmeister's girlfriend at the time discovered a pornographic image of a child on his cell phone and informed the police. Teichtmeister initially denied the allegations by claiming it was an act of revenge by his former partner.
During a search of Teichtmeister's apartment, police found around 58,000 files with pornographic depictions of minors in a total of 22 data carriers such as laptops, desktops, mobile phones, USB sticks and memory cards collected between February 2008 and August 2021. The investigators found no evidence that Teichtmeister had passed on data, but he is said to have taken photos of minors himself at film locations and subsequently arranged them into collages with speech bubbles with pornographic content. Police also found 110 grams of cocaine on Teichtmeister's mattress, but the prosecutor did not charge the actor for possession of cocaine because there was no evidence that the drug was passed on and it was determined to be for personal use.
Teichtmeister confessed to the authorities throughout the investigation and had been undergoing psychological treatment for two years before he was charged. According to Teichtmeister's lawyer, Michael Rami, his client "fully confesses" and would plead guilty in the forthcoming trial. Teichtmeister's lawyer said that he was accused of a "purely digital crime", meaning that he has not committed any criminal acts against people.
Teichtmeister was a member of Vienna's Burgtheater, whose director, Martin Kušej, said that Teichtmeister had been identified internally as the person concerned in the rumors in 2021, but he "credibly denied" all of the allegations when he was confronted by the management and described the accusations as an act of revenge by his ex-partner. However, according to his lawyer, Teichtmeister confessed from the start and cooperated with the authorities.
A female acquaintance of Teichtmeister (who asked to remain anonymous) said that many people in the industry knew about his violent behavior because he confessed to his colleagues about beating his partner.
Aftermath Following the charge, Austrian public broadcaster ORF—which co-produced Corsage—stated that it will refrain from producing and broadcasting works with Teichtmeister with immediate effect, and the Burgtheater fired him from their ensemble without notice. The cinema chain Cineplexx also reacted by removing Corsage from its theaters in Austria. Corsage producers, Johanna Scherz and Alexander Glehr stated; "Today we learned of the charges against Florian Teichtmeister for the first time and as film producers and parents we are deeply shocked. Over the weekend we will decide together with the director of the film, Marie Kreutzer, what this means for the film and we will inform you in good time."
On 14 January 2023, Austria's State Secretary for the Federal Ministry for Art, Culture, Public Service and Sport, Andrea Mayer, announced a detailed examination of the case and commissioned the Bundestheater-Holding to create a comprehensive chronology of the information flows in the group to ensure that all levels were acted correctly and with the necessary care.