Our 16 November 2009 research note The importance of imprisoning corrupt officials draws on information which, in a positive departure from past (anti-transparency) practice, has recently started to be published by the relevant Russian agencies. These include the Interior Ministry, the Legal Department of the Supreme Court and the Investigative Committee of the Federal General Prosecutor’s Office. From this growing body of evidence emerges a picture of the increasing extent of the legal repression – through prosecutions and court convictions – of corruption. An important part of that picture are the prison sentences being handed down regularly to the state mafia – that is, the corrupt officials that prey on business.
The two tables below show sentences that were given during the period January-October 2009 to officials with “special legal status” (members of local legislatures, mayors, high-ranking employees of the Investigative Committee and so forth) or occupying a high-ranking position in an executive body or agency at the regional or municipal level. All of the information contained in these tables is taken from a comprehensive log of corruption cases, convictions and sentences published on the website of the Investigative Committee.
|
Month |
City/region |
Post held by the defendant(s) |
Crime(s) for which convicted |
Punishment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
February |
Orel |
Former head of the regional branch of the Federal Registration Service |
Abuse of office, swindling and exceeding official powers (among other crimes, misappropriated budget funds totalling more than Rb6 million by concluding a fictitious agreement with a local industrialist on leasing factory space) |
8-year prison sentence, Rb500,000 fine and 3-year ban on employment in state service |
|
March |
Ulyanovsk |
Former chief of police of Novomalyklinsky district |
Bribe-taking (accepted Rb140,000 not to fine a local scrap metal dealer who had no licence) |
2.5-year prison sentence |
|
April |
Bashkortostan |
Chief architect of the Ufim local administration |
Bribe-taking (demanded Rb2 million from a local firm for approving documents for the transfer of a plot of land for the construction of a cemetery) |
4-year prison sentence (hard labour) |
|
Ulyanovsk |
Former head and deputy head of the Zavolzhsk district administration |
Swindling (demanded Rb3 million from a local company to approve the acquisition of land) |
6-year and 6.5-year prison sentences, respectively, and fines of Rb800,000 each |
|
|
Chuvashiya |
Head of the Poretsk district administration |
Deliberate bankruptcy (as head of a local furniture company received credit worth Rb790,000 from a local administration to buy land, which he then sold at a significantly lower price, leaving the company unable to pay its debts) and exceeding official powers (causing losses to the state of Rb34,000) |
2.5 year prison sentence |
|
|
Pskov |
Former head of the police department of Gdovsk district |
Bribe-taking (demanded Rb100,000 a month to guarantee protection to a local amusement arcade owner ) |
3-year prison sentence |
|
|
May |
Karelia |
Former acting deputy minister of industry and natural resources |
Bribe-taking and illegal entrepreneurial activities (accepted bribes worth Rb11.8 million for issuing licences to a local granite-mining company and founded several companies for which he helped procure subsoil licences) |
7-year prison sentence (hard labour) and 3-year ban on employment in state service |
|
Kurgan |
Head of the department for the management of municipal property of Shumikhin district |
Bribe-taking (to the tune of Rb350,000) |
7-year prison sentence |
|
|
Penza |
Former head of the Kuznetsk municipal administration |
Abuse of office and exceeding official powers (facilitated the transfer of leased retail premises to a company owned by the defendant’s brother, causing losses to another company of more than Rb3 million, and organized the transfer to his brother’s company of two plots of land, causing losses to the local budget of Rb1 million) |
3.5-year prison sentence |
|
|
June |
Kareliya |
Head of the Zaozersk district administration |
Bribe-taking (demanded Rb300,000 from a private individual for the allocation of a plot of land) |
3.5-year prison sentence and 3-year ban on employment in state service |
|
Former head of the Main Investigative Administration of the Investigative Committee of the Federal General Prosecutor’s Office |
Exceeding official powers and bribe-taking (received more than €750,000 from a well-known businessman) |
9-year prison sentence (hard labour) and Rb800,000 fine |
||
|
July |
Yaroslavl |
Former head of Rybinsk municipal council |
Misuse of budget funds (totalling Rb1 million) and bribe-taking (to the tune of Rb1 million from a local businessman) |
7.5-year prison sentence (hard labour) |
|
Magadan |
Former head of the criminal investigation department of the Yagodninsk district police |
Exceeding official powers and illegal possession of precious metals (industrial gold worth Rb859,000 stolen by an employee of a local company) |
5-year prison sentence and Rb250,000 fine |
|
|
Yaroslavl |
Former public prosecutor |
Bribe-taking (received Rb360,000 from the local owner of an amusement arcade for returning slot machines confiscated by local police) |
8-year prison sentence (hard labour) |
|
|
Nizhny Novgorod |
Former head of the regional branch of the police department for fighting crimes against consumers |
Bribe-taking and swindling (received more than Rb660,000 in bribes from local companies) |
8-year prison sentence (hard labour), Rb500,000 fine and 3-year ban on employment in state and municipal service |
|
|
August |
Tyumen |
Deputy head and chief accountant of the municipal social security office |
Swindling (misappropriated budget funds totalling Rb1.4 million earmarked for one-off payments to unemployed mothers) |
6.5-year and 5.5 year prison sentences and Rb105,000 and Rb55,000 fines, respectively |
|
September |
Irkutsk |
Former head of the public security police of the Kazachinsk-Lensk district |
Attempted extortion (tried to persuade the founder of a local firm to sign over 25% of the firm’s starting capital to the defendant’s wife in return for protection and a licence) |
5.5-year prison sentence (hard labour) |
|
Lipetsk |
Deputy head of the regional branch of the Federal Tax Service |
Bribe-taking (received Rb6 million out of an agreed Rb22 million in bribes from a local company) |
9-year prison sentence (hard labour) |
|
|
October |
Altai |
Former director and deputy director of the regional branch of the Federal Property Fund |
Bribe-taking (received bribes “on a large scale” and to the tune of Rb400,000, respectively, from companies authorized to sell property confiscated by the state) |
8-year and 3-year prison sentences (hard labour), respectively |
|
Chuvashiya |
Deputy head of the Mariinsky-Posad municipal administration |
Swindling (misappropriated funds intended to house families in need; sum not mentioned) |
4-year prison sentence, 3-year ban on employment in state or municipal service and Rb10,000 fine |
|
|
Magadan |
Former head of the criminal police of the Olsk district department of the interior |
Exceeding official powers (illegal procurement of salmon worth Rb1.8 million) |
2.5-year prison sentence, 3-year ban on employment in the state service, local government and law-enforcement agencies |
|
|
Moscow |
Head of the Tver District Engineering Service |
Swindling (received Rb424,000 to sign documents awarding state contracts) |
8-year prison sentence (hard labour) and 3-year ban on holding office |
|
Month |
City/region |
Post held by the defendant(s) |
Crime(s) for which convicted |
Punishment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
January |
Udmurtiya |
Deputy of the Lozinskoe municipal assembly |
Exceeding official powers (in the capacity of forest warden, allotted plots for felling trees in a forested area where felling is banned, causing losses to the state of Rb113,000) |
2-year suspended sentence (defendant appealing) |
|
Krasnodar |
First deputy head of Mostov district administration |
Swindling (demanded Rb250,000 from a local entrepreneur for signing agreements on leasing plots of land) |
2-year suspended sentence |
|
|
Komi |
Former chief of staff of the head of the republic’s administration |
Exceeding official authority (on behalf of the head of the republic, signed a contract worth Rb4 million on providing protection for the first deputy head of the republic) |
3-year suspended sentence and 3-year ban on employment in state service |
|
|
February |
Saratov |
Deputy of the Saratov municipal assembly |
Bribery (as head of a local retail company attempted to give bribes totalling Rb4 million to an employee of the local public prosecutor’s office) |
7-month prison sentence (freed after trial because of time served in pre-trial detention) |
|
Smolensk |
Head of the regional branch of the Federal Prison Service |
Exceeding official powers and causing substantial losses to the state (diverted Rb1.3 million in state funds to acquire an apartment) |
4-year suspended sentence |
|
|
April |
Kemerovo |
Head of a local tax inspectorate |
Swindling and forgery (to the tune of Rb300,000) |
5-year suspended sentence and three-year ban on employment in state service |
|
Volgograd |
Former head of the district police department for fighting economic crimes |
Abuse of office (accepting bribes totalling Rb250,000) |
3-year suspended sentence and 2-year ban on employment in law-enforcement agencies |
|
|
Komi |
Former head of the Usinsk traffic police |
Exceeding official powers and illegal entrepreneurial activities (misappropriation of funds totalling Rb6.7 million) |
3.5-year ban on employment in state service and a Rb30,000 fine. |
|
|
Irkutsk |
Deputy of Mamsk-Chuisk district |
Negligence (signed off on the transfer of federal funds totalling Rb2.7 million to a construction company that carried out apartment house repairs costing only Rb100,000) |
Rb50,000 fine |
|
|
May |
Kemerovo |
Chief architect of the Novokuznetsk municipal administration |
Exceeding official powers (certified that nine apartments from the 1960-70s were new builds, causing losses to a private individual of Rb11.5 million) |
3-year suspended prison sentence and 3-year ban on employment in state service |
|
June |
Udmurtiya |
Police inspector of the Zavyalov district |
Bribe-taking (sum not mentioned) |
3-year suspended prison sentence |
|
Bryansk |
Deputy of the Novozybkov municipal council |
Bribe-taking and fraud (in the capacity of physician; sum not mentioned) |
3.5-year suspended prison sentence and 2- year ban on employment in local government |
|
|
Udmurtiya |
Deputy head of the regional customs service |
Bribery (attempted to bribe an official of the regional special security department to the tune of Rb25,000) |
2-year suspended sentence |
|
|
Lipetsk |
Head of the Terbun local administration |
Bribe-taking (accepted Rb55,000 from a construction company for signing a quality control document for road repairs) |
5-year suspended prison sentence and 1.5 year ban on employment in state service and local government |
|
|
Deputy head of the inspectorate of the Department for the Oversight of Business Affairs of the Federal Ministry of Justice |
Bribe-taking (bribe received in the form of a souvenir knife worth Rb25,000) |
3-year suspended prison sentence and 1-year ban on holding office |
||
|
Moscow region |
Head of the Rogov-Podolsk local administration |
Exceeding official powers (received Rb4.8 million earmarked for social purposes in return for services rendered) |
Rb300,000 fine |
|
|
Khanty-Mansiisk |
Head of the Ugut local administration |
Exceeding official powers (evicted families from communal housing to resettle others) |
3-year suspended prison sentence |
|
|
Moscow region |
Head of the Rogov-Podolsk local administration |
Exceeding official powers (received Rb4.8 million earmarked for social purposes in return for services rendered) |
Rb300,000 fine |
|
|
July |
Kareliya |
Former head of the Lakhdenpokhsk municipal district |
Exceeding official powers (demanded payments from applicants for plots of land on the local territory) and failure to implement a court ruling |
6-year suspended prison sentence and ban on employment in municipal service |
|
August |
Komi |
Former head of the Kosyu local administration |
Abuse of office and fraud |
2-year suspended prison sentence |
|
September |
Penza |
Head of the Reshetinsk district administration |
Swindling, fraud and money laundering (received federal budget subsidies for livestock that the defendant did not own) |
2.5-year suspended prison sentence |
|
Orenburg |
Head of the Akbulak district administration |
Abuse of office (used regional funds totalling Rb1 million to build a house on a plot of land that the defendant had allotted to himself) |
2-year suspended prison sentence and 2.5 year ban on employment in state or municipal service |
|
|
October |
Orenburg |
Head of the Novomusinsk district administration |
Bribe-taking (demanded Rb20,000 from a local satellite television company in return for protection) and swindling |
6-year suspended sentence |
|
Novgorod |
Head of the Demyansk municipal council |
Exceeding official powers (awarded a friend a municipal contract, without tender, worth Rb300,000) |
Rb100,000 fine and 1-year ban on employment in local government |
|
|
Novogorod |
Former deputy head of the regional branch of the Federal Drugs Control Service |
Swindling (misappropriation of funds totalling Rb18,500) |
Rb220,000 fine |
|
|
Udmurtiya |
Head of the culture department of the of the Votkinsk district administration |
Embezzlement (to the tune of Rb30,000) |
1.5 year ban on employment in state or municipal service |
|
|
Kareliya |
Head of the Kharlussk district administration |
Bribe-taking (received Rb350,000 to help a private individual receive a municipal apartment and Rb250,000 from applicants for plots of land) |
5.5-year suspended prison sentence, 3-year ban on employment in organs of state power and Rb300,000 fine |
|
|
|
Perm |
Head of the Lysva municipal administration |
Abuse of office (transfer of municipal property [water pumps and pipes] to a private company, causing losses to the municipal budget of more than Rb13 million) |
4-year suspended sentence and 3-year ban on holding office |
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