Real estate tycoon Rudi Stroink and his wife have been acquitted six years after being convicted of bribing an American Google executive. The Court of Appeal in Arnhem-Leeuwarden ruled this week that there was insufficient evidence to prove the verdict. “Something has fallen off your shoulders, you’re a little lighter, but we’re still a little bit in a coma,” Stroink said last night. In the eye of tomorrow.

Stroink and his wife were sentenced to community service and a suspended prison sentence in 2018 for bribing an American executive at Google. They allegedly paid bribes through his then-real estate company TCN to enable the leasing of a data center to Google.

“We had just woken up in the morning when suddenly there was a whole police force at the door,” Strunk, 68, said on the radio show. “We were arrested and put in jail. I spent one night and my wife spent two. It was a very horrific experience.”

According to Stroink, the Justice Department’s hope was that the couple would incriminate themselves in conversations with each other after their release. “We were also wiretapped for a long time. We found out during the court hearing, and we were allowed to listen in. We always said to our guests: Speak well.”

At the time, Strunk paid a lot of money to a middleman, and the money eventually ended up with the Google manager. Both later pleaded guilty in the US justice system and said that Strunk was aware of the bribe.

The court ruled Wednesday that those statements were unreliable and may have placed some of the blame on Stroink in order to get a lighter sentence. Other witnesses may also contradict their statements.

Stroink says he had no doubts about the payments that should have been made at the time. “But when you look at the film afterwards, you think, ‘What happened there?’” He says he learned his lesson. “You have to be on your toes all the time, and I hope I can pass that on to others.”

The prosecution can still appeal. Stroink hopes it won’t come to that. “Eight years with this cloud over you is punishment enough, I think, if there are still feelings of revenge.”

He does not intend to seek compensation, although he has lost many contacts in the business world. “I’m not worried about it. I don’t hold any grudges. It happened and we can’t change that. We don’t want to be involved in it,” he added.