Three men have been found guilty of trying to blackmail the family of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher.
The men threatened to release around 900 photos and 600 videos of Mr Schumacher, his wife, and two grown-up children unless they were paid a £12 million sum.
They also had copies of the seven-time Formula One champion’s medical records, the prosecution office said.
Mr Schumacher retired from the public eye after a brain injury on a ski holiday in France in 2013, and his family is notoriously private about his medical condition.
A 53-year-old man with previous convictions was sentenced to three years in jail at a court in Wuppertal, West Germany, for his leading role in the blackmail attempt.
His son was handed a six-month suspended sentence and £1,000 fine, while the ex-employee of a security firm hired to protect Mr Schumacher’s family shortly before his 2013 skiing accident was given a two-year suspended sentence and a £2,000 fine for aiding and abetting the other two men.
The ex-security worker had primarily contributed to the illegal enterprise through data breaches, according to reports, and had been assigned to protect the Schumacher family at their home in Switzerland 18 months before the racing driver’s brain injury.
A total of 1,500 photos and videos were recovered from the men’s possession and another hard drive is still yet to be recovered, the prosection office said.
While the father and son both admitted to the charges against them, the ex-security worker denied that he had stolen data from the German racing car driver.
The family’s lawyer Thilo Damm said they were planning to appeal the former security guard’s sentence and demand that he face four years behind bars.
“We do not agree with everything the court said,” Mr Damm said. “You can rest assured that we will exhaust all legal possibilities at our disposal.”
The lawyer also raised concerns about the missing hard drive, telling the court: “We don’t know where [it] is. I don’t have a crystal ball, but there is the possibility of another threat through the backdoor.”