The court in St. Petersburg justified the art critic Elena Basner

Today, May 17, the Dzerzhinsky District Court of St. Petersburg issued an acquittal to art critic Elena Basner in the fraud case in the sale of a painting by Boris Grigoryev “in a restaurant”.

“The court believes that the testimony of the defendant that she did not remember that the original picture of Grigoryev was stored in the Russian Museum, was not refuted by the prosecution,” Judge Angelica Morozov quotes Interfax .

She also noted that the court could not evaluate the properties and features of a person’s memory, and Basner could really not know what she appreciated the fake as an original.

The court concluded that the prosecution could not prove the guilt of the art critic in fraud, as well as unreasonably and biasedly interpreted witnesses against Basner. In addition, conflicting evidence was presented to the court. During the judicial investigation, only a fake of the painting “in a restaurant” in the expert center named after Grabar.

The accusations asked for Basner a punishment in the form of four years in a colony-settlement and a fine of 500 thousand rubles, the defense asked for the excite the art critic.

On January 31, 2014, an art history candidate Elena Basner was detained on suspicion that in 2009 she gave a false expert opinion on the authenticity of the picture of Boris Grigoryev, who was subsequently sold for $ 250 thousand.

On February 4, Basner was officially charged under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud on an especially large scale), the next day the Oktyabrsky District Court of St. Petersburg placed it under house arrest.

In December 2014, the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg announced the completion of the investigation and transfer of materials to the prosecutor's office, and soon the department approved the indictment. On January 30, 2015, the Dzerzhinsky court of St. Petersburg decided to release Basner from under house arrest and release it on a recognizance not to leave.

Elena Basner's colleagues did not allow her to be involved in fraud. The director of the Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky and even the collector Andrei Vasiliev, who bought a fake picture, opposed the arrest of the art critic.