A court has found the evidence gathered by Novgorod Region investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee enough to convict former head of territorial office of the Federal Agency for Managing State Property in the region Viktor Mitr, CEO of OAO Road Service Enterprise No 77 (OJSC) Igor Ivanov and local businessman Andrey Bortsov. Depending on the role of each one they were found guilty of crimes under art 2 of article 286 (exceeding officials powers by a person occupying a state position), part 3 of article 33, part 4 of article 160 of the RF Penal Code (organization of embezzlement committed by a person using their official position and by a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy and on an especially massive scale, embezzlement) and part 1 of article 176 (illegal loan).

The court and investigators have found that in March-April 2012, head of territorial office of the Federal Agency for Managing State Property in Novgorod region Viktor Mitr gave an order to his subordinates to make a fake protocol of the meeting of the board of directors of OAO Road Service Enterprise No 77 headed by Ivanov. The protocol was about approving a deal selling an asphalt mixing machine KDM 201637 with a book cost of 15 million 954 thousand rubles which belonged to OAO Road Service Enterprise No 77. Later on the machine was passed to the belonging of OOO DSK Orion (LLC) headed by a close friend of Ivanov’s at understated price.

In addition in April-May 2012, Ivanov and businessman Bortsov stole expensive road building equipment of OAO Road Service Enterprise No 77 to the benefit of the third party leaders and CEO’s of which were their acquaintances. The enterprise suffered damage of 11.5 million rubles.

The case was initiated based on the results of joint work of Novgorod Region law enforcement agencies during a check of not paying wages in OAO Road Service Enterprise No 77, 100% shares of which belongs to the Russian Federation. The enterprise had a debt of about 5 million rubles of not paid wages to 110 its employees. The check found not only abuses of citizen’s labor rights, but the stealing of the assets.

The investigation was especially complicated because of labor-intensive and long-term expert examinations analyzing a large amount of bookkeeping and financial documents, refutation of versions suggested by the victims and the investigators. The investigators ran over 30 expert examinations, including computer ones, bookkeeping, handwriting, ballistic, merchandising and others.

The affiliated firms of the accused, their flats in Novgorod Region and in Moscow were searched.

It should be noted that during the detainment in Moscow, Mitr fought back. He also tried to pressure the witnesses, who had been his subordinates. They created the evidence proving him innocent, made forged sale contracts and protocols of meetings of the board of directors of OAO Road Service Enterprise No 77 to make his actions look like legal and took measures to destroy and forge the documents relating to alienation of the assets.

Despite all his efforts, the investigators managed to gather enough evidence to convict Mitr.

The court has sentenced Mitr to 5 years, Bortsov to 4 years and 6 months, Ivanov to 3 years in a minimum-security penal colony and a fine of 100 thousand rubles each. In addition Mitr was banned from occupying certain positions for 2 years.