Johanna Van Beethoven - Embezzlement and Conviction

Embezzlement and Conviction

On 19 July 1811, Johanna agreed to sell a pearl necklace, worth 20,000 florins, on commission. The pearls were the joint property of three people: a Frau Kojowitz (who gave the necklace to Johanna to sell), Elisabeth Duchateau, and Josef Gessward. Johanna then faked a burglary in her home, breaking open chests and opening cupboards. When the "burglary" was discovered that evening, she hid the pearls in her reticule. She then accused her former maid, named Anna Eisenbach, of the crime. The police interrogated Eisenbach for several days, then released her for lack of evidence.

In early August 1811 Johanna was found wearing one of the strings of the pearls (there were three total). Under police interrogation, she eventually confessed that she had sold the other two strings for 4000 florins to a man named Aaron Abineri. After some efforts by her husband Kaspar Karl, she was released from police custody on 12 August. The pearls were eventually recovered.

Her trial began on 27 December. It emerged that Johanna owed thousands of florins to various individuals; she complained that her husband (a government clerk) did not give her much money. On 30 December 1811, Joanna was convicted, apparently both of embezzlement and of the crime of "calumny", which meant the false accusation of Anna Eisenbach.

The court sentenced her to one year of "severe imprisonment". By this it was meant that she would be placed in leg irons, limited to a meatless diet, forced to sleep on bare boards, and not allowed to converse with anyone but her jailers. Through the intervention of her husband, the sentence was gradually reduced, first to two months, then to just one, and in the end (thanks to an appeal to the Emperor) to the time already served before her trial. Her crime, like the theft in 1804, was adduced as part of Ludwig van Beethoven's case in the lawsuits to come.

After this episode, Johanna (and her husband, until his death in 1815) continued to live beyond their means and pile up debts. In 1818, Johanna sold the house (including rental units) in the suburb of Alservorstadt that she had bought with her husband in 1813, but she remained in debt.