Susanne Klatten’s gigolo is jailed

Susanne Klatten, the BMW heiress who was ranked 55th in the last Forbes billionaire list, making her the richest woman in Germany, is in luck. She did not have to appear in court in Munich on Monday to testify against her former lover, Helg Sgarbi, nicknamed the 'Swiss gigolo', who was sentenced to six years in jail yesterday after deciding to plead guilty to swindling millions of euros from a string of wealthy European woman, among them Klatten.

Sgarbi had threatened at one stage to release a video of Klatten and himself having passionate sex in a hotel bedroom unless she gave him €12.5m. If he had contested the charges, Klatten would have had to discuss the affair in open court.

Klatten, 46, had already endured a series of leaked letters and telephone transcripts relating to their brief affair. In one such missive, Sgarbi wrote: "Dearest, do you remember how we fused in lust on the beach and you groaned loudly with passion?"

A married mother of two, Klatten met Sgarbi in Austria in 2007. After a brief romance, Klatten gave him nearly €7m when he spun her a story about being blackmailed by the Mafia in New York. But Sgarbi was not satisfied with this. He demanded that Klatten leave her husband so that they could start a new life together. When she refused, Sgarbi threatened to publish his incriminating sex video, which an accomplice had filmed. At that point, the heiress told her husband, informed the police and the gigolo was arrested.

Sgarbi was surrounded by photographers when he entered the Munich court yesterday. His lawyer said the charges against him were "at their core, true" and Sgarbi himself apologised to his victims, who between them gave him a total of €9m under duress. Three of the women were referred to by the initials H, S and R in the indictment; only Klatten gave permission for her name to be listed.