In Chap­ter 35 of “The Art Thief,” Sten­gel, the moth­er of the accused, presents a con­vo­lut­ed tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the French tri­al. Ini­tial­ly, she claims that her son had nev­er stored art in her attic, con­tra­dict­ing ear­li­er admis­sions of hav­ing destroyed numer­ous pieces. Under inter­ro­ga­tion, she insists that her state­ments were made under duress and that she nev­er harmed any art­works. Despite her asser­tions, her tes­ti­mo­ny reveals a mix of fear and resent­ment. She express­es a chill­ing detach­ment, stat­ing sim­ply, “I hate my son.”

The pros­e­cu­tor empha­sizes the grav­i­ty of her actions, accus­ing her of a pro­found betray­al against cul­tur­al her­itage. A psy­cho­log­i­cal report by ther­a­pist César Redon­do asserts that Sten­gel know­ing­ly destroyed sig­nif­i­cant art­works, dri­ven by a tur­bu­lent rela­tion­ship with her son, whom she viewed as being held cap­tive by his art. This obses­sion fueled a desire to elim­i­nate per­ceived rivals for her son’s affec­tion.

As Stengel’s con­tra­dic­to­ry claims unrav­el in court, her son, Bre­itwieser, defends her fer­vent­ly while grap­pling with feel­ings of shame and pain at her words. His attor­ney seeks to posi­tion Sten­gel as a vic­tim rather than a vil­lain, plead­ing against impris­on­ment. How­ev­er, she is found guilty of han­dling stolen goods, fac­ing poten­tial severe penal­ties but ulti­mate­ly serv­ing less than four months in jail before under­go­ing pro­ba­tion.

Anne-Cather­ine, anoth­er key fig­ure, takes the stand next, deny­ing any involve­ment in Breitwieser’s crimes. She char­ac­ter­izes her rela­tion­ship with him as one of fear and sub­ju­ga­tion, which he vehe­ment­ly dis­putes. The pros­e­cu­tor con­fronts her incon­sis­ten­cies and past com­plic­i­ty in the thefts, yet thanks to her lawyer’s inter­ven­tion, she faces min­i­mal con­se­quences, serv­ing just one night in jail.

Bre­itwieser, despite his efforts to shield both women dur­ing the tri­al, is sen­tenced to a sig­nif­i­cant term. He immers­es him­self in edu­ca­tion­al pur­suits while incar­cer­at­ed, striv­ing to redeem him­self. Even­tu­al­ly released, he starts work­ing again but strug­gles with the empti­ness of his exis­tence. Sten­gel con­tin­ues sup­port­ing him, but joy­ful reunions are marred by ques­tions about the fate of the lost art, which she refus­es to dis­cuss.

As Bre­itwieser nav­i­gates his pro­ba­tion, he wres­tles with feel­ings of iso­la­tion and long­ing for his for­mer rela­tion­ships, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Anne-Cather­ine. An ill-fat­ed attempt to recon­nect leads to anoth­er brief incar­cer­a­tion, deep­en­ing his sense of despair and hope­less­ness, ulti­mate­ly leav­ing him scarred—both phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly.