Tears for Simone

Jacqueline Lugner: “My father needed help”

Widow Simone Lugner (left, with attorney Höllwarth) was questioned at the Palace of Justice, as was Jacqueline Lugner (above), the builder’s daughter.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Anja Richter, Gerhard Bartel)

Has Simone Lugner forfeited her right to live in her late husband Richard Lugner’s villa due to a lack of care for him? Baumeister’s daughter Jacqueline Lugner reveals juicy details as a witness in the civil trial.

It is doubtful whether the late builder Richard Lugner would have approved of what is unfolding in court posthumously. For the proceedings involve intimate details of his married life with Simone and the 91-year-old’s state of health in the weeks leading up to his death.

As is well known, the Lugner Family Private Foundation filed an eviction suit against the widow. It alleges that she did not adhere to the terms of the marital agreement and failed to care for the builder, which is why her right to reside in his villa has expired.

Widow Simone Lugner (left, with attorney Höllwarth) was questioned at the Palace of Justice, as was Jacqueline Lugner (above), the builder’s daughter.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Anja Richter, Gerhard Bartel)

“That is absolutely incorrect”
“Did you organize his care?” asks Markus Tschank, the plaintiff’s attorney. – “No, because Richard didn’t need care.”

This is precisely where opinions differ in court. While Lugner’s housekeepers accuse the widow of not having cared for her husband, Simone presents it differently: “That is absolutely incorrect. Because the two of them were already gone by the time I came home from work.” She spent the evenings together with Richard. “If he needed help, for example with climbing the stairs, then of course I helped him,” says Simone, who is represented by Florian Höllwarth.

Was Simone only Richard’s third choice?
During the lunch break, Simone Lugner loses her composure, and tears flow. She is not in the courtroom during the questioning of Richard’s daughter, Jacqueline Lugner. “My father injured his lumbar vertebrae and was on crutches starting in mid-June, and later also in a wheelchair,” Jacqueline recalls as a witness.

In conversations, her father had complained of severe pain. On the Friday before his death, he had complained to her about Simone and said, “I have to arrange for a caregiver again for Saturday and Sunday.”

“Jacky” reveals another detail: “Before Simone, my father asked two other women if they would marry him, but they turned him down. They were worried that he would need care.” Care had been very important to her father regarding his sixth marriage. Simone had not fulfilled this need. The trial continues on May 8.