After he was convicted of defrauding investors out of more than $20 million, Bernhard Eugen Fritsch fled the U.S. to avoid an expected 15-year prison sentence.
Now, his girlfriend has been ensnared in the scheme, and she could serve up to five years behind bars while he remains abroad, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.
Lucinda Jane Weist Manera, 63, pleaded guilty Monday to one felony count of accessory after the fact, which prosecutors say included helping Fritsch flee the country after his April 2025 federal conviction for wire fraud, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors say that Manera helped Fritsch hide from federal law enforcement in Mexico before he escaped to his native Germany.
Manera “assisted Fritsch with the purpose of hindering and preventing Fritsch’s apprehension and punishment, including by lying to FBI special agents,” prosecutors wrote in a statement. She made payments totaling almost $8,000 from June to September 2025, prosecutors said, to someone who owned the home where Fritsch was “hiding out” in Mexico and to help pay for a Mexican hotel where he stayed.
She also was accused of researching, on Fritsch’s behalf, how he could make his way to Germany, which typically prohibits the extradition of its citizens, according to prosecutors.
Before the wire fraud conviction, Fritsch, now 64, had been living in Malibu — where prosecutors say his scheme helped fund a lavish lifestyle that included a Rolls-Royce, a mansion by Carbon Beach and a yacht.
A federal jury convicted him of defrauding investors out of more than $20 million by lying to them about his technology company’s financial performance. The company involved a software application that was supposed to help celebrities and social media influencers monetize their brand endorsements, prosecutors said.
Fritsch was free on bond at the time of his conviction, but was scheduled back in court in June 2025 to be taken into federal custody before his sentencing, officials said. But on the day of that hearing, prosecutors say Fritsch drove from Southern California across the border into Mexico.
In October, Fritsch was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in federal prison, fined $35,000 and ordered to pay $26,806,901 in restitution. Authorities are still requesting he surrender.
Manera faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for her role in his flight.
Times staff writer Clara Harter contributed to this report.
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