The court and the jury have found evidence fathered by the main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee enough to convict head of youth and junior military patriotic club “Yunye Orlyata Flota” (Young Eaglets if Fleet) Vasily Midtsev. He was found guilty of crimes under article 132 of the RF Criminal Code (sexual violence), article 135 (lechery). The jury unanimously found him guilty and not recommended for mercy.
According to investigators, Midtsev from 2005 to 2011, sexually assaulted and abused underage boys both inside the club and on trips. He also committed his crimes on the functional rocket cruiser marshal Ustinov and atomic cruiser Peter the Great based in the city of Severomorsk, Murmansk Region. The club itself was located in the center of Moscow. It was set up to organize the leisure time of boys under 14. Together with the club head the children visited places of military glory, went to children’s camps and organized hiking trips.
It was extremely difficult to investigate the case as Midtsev told the boys not to tell anybody about what he had done to them. He set up a strict subordination. Not only the boys listened to him, but his parents as well considering him as Commander in Chief praised as a hero. The fact that victims had been found not only in Moscow, but in other regions of Russia also posed a certain difficulty to the investigation.
Only after one of the boys had told parents about Midtsev’s actions and they had reported it to the police it became known. Despite the active resistance to the investigation, including that of some of the parents, all Midtsev’s defensive versions and his alibi were disproved consistently and irrefutably. Midtsev never confessed to any of the counts. Records of his phone conversations and other evidence undoubtedly proved his guilt in sexual abuse of the boys. The total score of the crimes committed by Midtsev uncovered by investigators together with operational agents exceeds 100. Moscow city court tried the criminal case over 70 of them.
The court sentenced Vasily Midtsev on the bases of the jury verdict to 18 years in a maximum-security penal colony and banned him from being engaged in any pedagogical activity for 15 years.
At the same time, though there is the verdict, the investigation is not finished yet. Moscow Main Investigations Directorate is investigating a criminal case against Vasily Midtsev and the investigators are checking whether he has been involved in any other similar crimes.
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