Translated material
After the banquet
Exposed lawyer Parshutkin will be searched for in Ukraine
The Moscow prosecutor's office has prepared documents for arresting in absentia and putting on the wanted list the capital's lawyer Viktor Parshutkin. He is accused of illegally - outside the scope of the trial - convincing the Moscow City Court jurors to acquit his clients at the beginning of this year, which led to the adoption of a “deliberately unjust verdict.” Mr. Parshutkin is charged with Art. 294 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (obstruction of justice), which, in principle, is used extremely rarely in modern criminal practice. For the institution of jury trials, this case, as noted by the prosecutor’s office, is generally a precedent.Viktor Parshutkin participated in the trial of two entrepreneurs - Igor Poddubny and Evgeny Babkov, who were accused of organizing a criminal community, fraud, smuggling, evasion of customs duties and causing property damage through deception and breach of trust. According to investigators, they smuggled large quantities of cigarettes into Russia through front companies, causing damage to the state of 22 million rubles. Poddubny and Babkov were also charged with theft of $2 million from the Gloria Trade company.
The case was heard in the Moscow City Court from October 4, 2004, with the participation of a panel of jurors, the composition of which changed twice. The first panel was unable to consider the case because some of the assessors withdrew from the trial due to illness or family circumstances. As a result, the jury was dissolved, and the new jury, as state prosecutor Maria Semenenko said in her report to the city prosecutor, immediately began to be biased towards both the prosecution and its witnesses. In particular, at those moments when Mr. Parshutkin or his witnesses spoke, the jury applauded. And vice versa, they buzzed when Ms. Semenenko spoke.
Nevertheless, the trial was completed, and on February 3, the jury delivered its verdict, completely acquitting the defendants. Evgeniy Babkov was immediately released in the courtroom. And Igor Poddubny remained to serve out his previous sentence (two years in prison), which he received in August 2003 during the investigation of his “main” case. Having already become familiar with the investigation materials, he tore out several sheets of paper from the case file and ate it, and then struck several blows at the assistant investigator who tried to stop him. As a result, Mr. Poddubny was found guilty of damaging documents and resisting a government official.
On the evening of February 3, shortly after the verdict was announced, an upset Ms. Semenenko went to have a snack at the Castle cafe, located opposite the Moscow City Court building, and was surprised to see three jurors there - the foreman of the panel Evgeny Danilov, jurors Vyacheslav Valyaev and Alexander Tsarkov - in the company of lawyer Parshutkin. They celebrated the successful outcome of the case. The state prosecutor openly photographed the entire company on a mobile phone camera and immediately wrote a report addressed to the city prosecutor. And just a few hours later, in the evening of the same day, Maria Semenenko’s mother was attacked. With the words “your nimble daughter hurts,” three men, not identified by the investigation, pushed the woman down the stairs in the underground passage of the Babushkinskaya metro station. As a result, the woman suffered a broken arm and numerous bruises. Based on the statement of the victim and Maria Semenenko, the city prosecutor's office opened a criminal case - intentional infliction of moderate harm to health.
And a few days later, Ms. Semenenko accidentally learned that on February 11, at the Starina Miller restaurant, lawyer Parshutkin was going to organize a banquet in the VIP room on the occasion of the successful outcome of the trial, to which 33 jurors were invited (the first and second panels of the panel, including “replacement” assessors) and Evgeniy Babkov, who was acquitted by them.
Maria Semenenko, outraged by such blatant impudence (by law, jurors have no right to communicate with lawyers or prosecutors or generally discuss with anyone the criminal case in which they are participating), then decided to catch lawyer Parshutkin “red-handed.” She asked a friend to help, who, under the guise of a designer, took photos and videos in the restaurant, capturing the banquet. Together with another report from Maria Semenenko, these materials were transferred to the prosecutor, after which an official investigation was launched.
As investigators found out, even when the trial of Poddubny and Babkov began, witnesses saw how lawyer Parshutkin sometimes left the room along with some of the jurors, conducting some confidential conversations. As a result, according to the prosecutor’s office, he managed to reach an agreement with nine jurors out of twelve of the second panel, who, as stated in the case materials, “began to impose their opinion on the others, threaten, put pressure and force them to make the necessary, correct decision - an acquittal.” . In particular, the prosecutor's office identified one incident that occurred in the deliberation room of the jury the day before the announcement of the verdict - February 2. Then one of the assessors, Valery Zinoviev, aloud expressed the opinion that the defendants were guilty. The reaction of his colleagues was unexpected for him. Two assessors - Nadezhda Ovsova and Galina Nazarova, according to the prosecutor's office, pressed the man against the wall and directly said that if he appeared in court tomorrow when the verdict was announced, he would be “terribly” sorry, but he has a family. As a result, Zinoviev did not go to the jury vote on February 3, and he was replaced by a reserve assessor. This skirmish was confirmed by another assessor, Amiran Cheishvili, who became an involuntary witness. Moreover, he also told investigators that the jury also threatened him with death, although only after the verdict was announced.
As a result, the investigation concluded that the jury, who were confident of the guilt of Poddubny and Babkov, was forced to vote for an acquittal verdict. True, how many jury votes were actually “for”, how many “against” and in general how the voting took place is impossible to establish, since according to the law, everything that happens in the deliberation room when pronouncing the verdict of the “court of the people” is secret. Nevertheless, the collected facts turned out to be sufficient. And on March 4, the Preobrazhensky Court satisfied the submission of Moscow Prosecutor Anatoly Zuev, confirming in the actions of lawyer Parshutkin the presence of elements of a crime under Art. 294 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Viktor Parshutkin himself did not come to court at that time, nor did he react to the subpoenas sent to him from the prosecutor’s office. According to investigators, it soon became clear that Mr. Parshutkin had left for Ukraine, and therefore a decision was made to put him on the wanted list. In addition, the Moscow prosecutor's office filed a protest against the court's verdict against Babkov and Poddubny, insisting on a review of this case.