RAMT director Sofya Apfelbaum was charged with fraud

The Investigative Committee charged Sofya Apfelbaum, director of RAMT, who was detained in the Seventh Studio case, with fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). This was reported by her lawyer Irina Poverinova.

The lawyer confirmed that Apfelbaum did not plead guilty.

Poverinova said that on October 27, the investigation will apply to the court with a request to impose a preventive measure on the director of the RAMT. “We don’t know yet what measure they will ask for,” she said.

• Sofya Apfelbaum, who in 2012-2014 headed the Department of State Support for Art in the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, was detained on October 26 as part of the Seventh Studio case.
• According to investigators, Apfelbaum "entered into an agreement" with the artistic director of the "Seventh Studio" Kirill Serebrennikov, signed on behalf of the Ministry of Culture agreements on the provision of subsidies to his company and "ensured the approval of reporting documentation containing inflated information about the number and cost of events."
• The Investigative Committee accuses the former leaders of the Seventh Studio theater campaign of embezzling 68 million rubles allocated by the Ministry of Culture for the Platforma project. Under arrest is the former director of the Gogol Center, Alexei Malobrodsky; artistic director of the theater Kirill Serebrennikov, former director of the Seventh Studio Yuri Itin and former chief accountant of the company Nina Maslyaeva are under house arrest. Producer Ekaterina Voronova has been put on the wanted list.
• Most of the defendants in the case refuse to plead guilty. Nina Maslyayeva agreed to plead guilty and cooperate with the investigation; she also testified against other defendants.