News

A court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Perm Territory investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee sufficient to convict three residents of the town of Vereshchagino aged 34, 43 and 23. Depending on the role of each one of them, they were found guilty of 11 counts of crimes under parts 2 and 3 of article 159 of the RF Penal Code (fraud committed by a group of people in conspiracy using official positions on a grand scale).

The court and investigators have revealed that, the 34-year-old municipal official of administration of Vereshchagino District in charge of providing housing for orphans, together with her 43-year-old acquaintance set up and organized group to steal money from Perm Territory budget allocated to implement pilot project “Providing payouts to buy housing for orphans and neglected children”. Their scheme was to find cheap housing, whose price was considerably lower than the amount of payouts under housing certificates, to persuade orphans to buy exactly that housing, hiding from them true amount of the payouts under housing certificates. Then the accomplices made agreements with the sellers of the housing that the latter would return them the difference between the real cost of the housing and the amount of housing payout or got from them power of attorney to be able to manage the housing. As a result the defendants stole part of the funds from Perm Territory budget allocated to implement the pilot project. The 23-year-old local man was involved in some of the crimes.

The investigators revealed that the defendants had committed 11 similar crimes stealing over 2.5 million rubles.

The court has sentenced the 34-year-old defendant to 5 years to be served in a minimum-security penal colony and banned her from taking any positions in state service or local government for 2.5 years. The 43-year-old defendant got 5 years to be served in a minimum-security penal colony. The 23-year-old defendant was fined by 250 thousand rubles. Pursuant to the resolution of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of 24.04.2015 “On amnesty dedicated to the 70^th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945” the man was pardoned.