News

The Chairman of the RF Investigative Committee has initiated criminal proceedings against judge of the Asbest Town Court of Sverdlovsk Region Maksim Vinogradov suspected of extorting and taking a briber on a very large scale under part 6 of Article 290 of the RF Penal Code. The case was opened based on the materials provided by the fourth department of the Investigative Committee’s Directorate based in the city of Yekaterinburg and collected together with agents of the Sverdlovsk Region Office of the Federal Security Service and after the Sverdlovsk Region qualification panel of judges had given their ascent.

According to investigators, Viktor Zubov, a businessman in the town of Asbest conspired with assistants to the Chairman of the Asbest Town Court Konstantin Zakharov and Vinogradov to extort a bribe of 6 million rubles from a notary officer, who was a defendant in one of the cases tried by Vinobradov charged with 18 counts of real estate fraud. The accomplices demanded the bribe acquittal.

In June 2016, Zubov, the middleman, was detained in Yekaterinburg upon taking the cash bribe, part of which was imitation, and which he had intended to hand over to Zakharov. The second middleman Zakharov was detained later in the town of Asbest upon taking the said money from Zubov. The same day, supervised by operative agents, he passed the money on to Vinogradov. The money and the imitation were confiscated from Vinogradov’s vehicle during subsequent investigative and search operations.  

The fourth department of the Investigative Committee’s Directorate based in the city of Yekaterinburg has initiated criminal proceedings against Zubov and Zakharov suspected of intermediary in bribery committed by a group of people in conspiracy and on a very large scale under part 4 of Article 291.1 of the RF Penal Code.

At present, investigative operations are underway to find out all the circumstances surrounding the crime. The investigation is ongoing.