Ex-Omsk City Hall official's fine was replaced with a prison sentence

The Omsk Regional Court has toughened the punishment for the former deputy head of the administration of the Soviet District of Omsk, Valery Usatov, who was sentenced several months ago to a fine for bribery. Yesterday, a panel of judges changed the sentence, deciding to place the ex-official in a maximum security colony for two years. For Usatov, this turn was unexpected. Having admitted guilt and repented, he hoped to retain the fine. The regional prosecutor's office was pleased with the new verdict, and the defense intends to appeal it.

Yesterday, the judicial panel for criminal cases of the Omsk Regional Court considered the appeal of prosecutors against the verdict of the first instance in a criminal case against the ex-deputy head of the administration of the Soviet District of Omsk Valery Usatov. In June, the Pervomaisky District Court found 64-year-old Usatov guilty of receiving a bribe (clause “c” of Part 5 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced him “below the lowest limit”, fining him one million rubles. The prosecutor's office demanded eight years in prison and a fine of 13.8 million rubles for the defendant.

As Kommersant reported, the court of first instance found that Valery Usatov at the end of 2012 offered the director of Stroyplastokno LLC, Mikhail Rybchinsky, to assist in the purchase of land plots located in the Beregovoy village of Omsk. At the same time, the ex-official promised to help the businessman in preparing and approving the documents necessary for the construction of apartment buildings and industrial premises on the sites, as well as to provide official information about the placement of utility lines on the sites. It was for providing Mr. Rybchinsky with topographic maps depicting the communications of the village that the entrepreneur, as the court found, gave the municipal employee a bribe of 30 thousand rubles. It was also proven at the meeting that a month later Usatov asked the entrepreneur for 500 thousand rubles. for assistance in registration of plots, guaranteeing victory in the auction. After this, Mikhail Rybchinsky contacted the police. Usatov was detained by law enforcement agencies on December 29, 2012 in his office after receiving the first part of a bribe of 200 thousand rubles from a businessman. Valery Usatov was appointed deputy head of the district administration in December 2010 and dismissed in January 2013 immediately after the initiation of a criminal case.

At the beginning of yesterday's trial, state prosecutor Evgeny Troeglazov explained to the court that the district court's decision regarding the ex-official was unfair and Usatov deserved punishment in the form of eight years in prison, 13.8 million rubles. a fine and a ban on holding positions in government bodies for two years. “The court of first instance found Valery Usatov guilty of committing a particularly serious crime of corruption, but he actually did not admit his guilt and did not repent of his crime. The mitigating circumstances indicated by the court: lack of prior criminal prosecution, positive characteristics from the place of work and residence, as well as state of health, are not exceptional, mitigating circumstances,” the state prosecutor told the court.

The former head of the Omsk district administration, Valery Usatov, was very worried, so he read his speech from a sheet of paper. “I do not demand to be acquitted, I admit my guilt and repent. It’s my fault that our relationship with Rybchinsky went beyond the official. Over the course of these two years, he ate himself from the inside and is now on a nervous breakdown. I consider the verdict of the Pervomaisky court to be fair,” explained the former city hall official.

The defendant's lawyer Stanislav Rodiontsev, as in the court of first instance, insisted that his client was provoked into accepting a bribe by law enforcement agencies. “They sent the provocateur Rybchinsky to him, who gained his trust. Moreover, from the very beginning, all his actions were controlled by the investigation - the case contains more than 70 telephone conversations. Without their intervention, Usatov would not have had the intention to obtain funds,” the defense lawyer said. According to the lawyer, the law enforcement agencies had one goal in this story - “to obtain compromising information and subsequently force Usatov to testify against the then-current mayor of Omsk Viktor Schrader (now a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation - Kommersant) and the former leader of my client Grigory Chertkov " Mr. Rodiontsev asked the court to leave the district court’s sentence unchanged, since “eight years for a 60-year-old man is a life sentence.”

After listening to the parties, the panel changed the verdict of the district court and sentenced Valery Usatov to two years in a maximum security colony and deprived him of the right to hold positions in government agencies for the same period. After the verdict was announced, Usatov was arrested in the courtroom. The ex-official gave his personal belongings to the lawyer and obediently went, accompanied by bailiffs, to pre-trial detention center No. 1.

The regional prosecutor's office was pleased with the verdict, since “Usatov received a real sentence.” The defense of the convicted person intends to appeal the decision of the board in the cassation instance

Olga Danilova

The bribe was processed on time