78-year-old Olympian can sit down for 8 years

As it became known to Kommersant, the 78-year-old ex-president of the All-Russian Society of the Deaf (VOG) Valery Rukhledev, who has the title of Olympian of the 20th century, can be sentenced to eight years for embezzlement. According to the prosecutor’s office, his guilt in embezzlement of VOG assets worth hundreds of millions of rubles has been fully proven. A public organization recognized as the injured party filed suits against him and other defendants.

After a process that lasted almost two years in the Khamovniki District Court, under the chairmanship of Judge Marina Filchenkova, the debate of the parties began. According to Kommersant, the prosecutor’s office believes that the guilt of the 78-year-old ex-president of the VOG Valery Rukhledev in four episodes of embezzlement or embezzlement (part 4 of article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) of the organization’s funds has been fully proven. For each of the crimes, representatives of the prosecutor’s office asked for an elderly man with a disability for six years in a general regime colony with a fine of 800 thousand rubles. Exactly the same punishment was requested for similar crimes for the former head of the legal department of the VOG Evgeny Novoseltsev.

By partial addition, the prosecution proposed to determine the final punishment for each of them in the form of eight years in a general regime colony with a fine of 1 million rubles. and a three-year ban on the right “to engage in activities related to the exercise of organizational, administrative and administrative powers in public and commercial organizations.” For the third defendant, Natalia Zembatova, ex-head of the finance department of the VOG, who is accused of only two criminal episodes under the same article of the Criminal Code, the prosecutor’s office asked for six years with a slightly smaller fine and a period of restrictions. It is expected that in the next few days the court will announce the decision on this high-profile case, which reached its logical conclusion, as Kommersant reported, only on the second attempt.

The investigation into the theft in the VOG, which is one of the oldest public organizations (has existed since 1926), was launched by the Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in January 2018 under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (especially large-scale fraud).

Evgeny Novoseltsev became his first defendant. He headed one of the subsidiaries of the society of the deaf – Vilart Investments LLC, which at one time was instructed to sell non-core assets of the VOG with a decrease in budget funding.

However, then new episodes and new defendants appeared in the case, including Valery Rukhledev, Natalya Zembatova and legal assistant Irina Rudenko. It is interesting that Mr. Rukhledev himself categorically denied his involvement in any theft, noting that he personally initiated an appeal to the police and the court to find those responsible for fraud and compensate for losses. He believed that some ill-wishers used the situation to remove him from the leadership of the VOG.

The investigation of the criminal case, which proceeded in several directions, progressed with difficulty. At first, the prosecutor’s office refused to approve the indictment, and then in 2019, the Khamovnichesky Court, which began the consideration on the merits, returned its materials after six months of meetings to the supervisory authority for “working on the mistakes.”

Then the investigators were talking about two crimes committed by Valery Rukhledev and Evgeny Novoseltsev, and one by Natalia Zembatova. The total amount of damage was estimated at 320 million rubles.

It was about fraud in the sale of the VOG building in the center of Moscow and the signing of fictitious acts on the allegedly performed work in the execution of contracts for the repair and reconstruction of the premises of the organization.

After further investigation, the number of criminal episodes for all the accused doubled.

Natalya Zembatova, according to some reports, fully admitted her guilt even at the first trial, as did Irina Rudenko. Both asked for a special procedure for their case, which provides for a short trial without calling witnesses and examining evidence, and a light sentence. However, this opportunity was provided only to Irina Rudenko, who eventually received three and a half years in prison. Meanwhile, the other three defendants were in jail. True, initially Valery Rukhledev was sent under house arrest, making allowances for his age and merits.

Hearing disabled since childhood, he successfully practiced judo and sambo, including wrestling with hearing athletes, becoming a master of sports of the USSR at the age of 16 and winning many awards of the highest standard at the international level. At one time, he became the only person in Russia who received the title of “Olympian of the 20th century” from the International Olympic Committee.

Valery Rukhledev headed many different sports organizations, and in 2003 he became the president of the VOG. However, when he was convicted of violating the rules of house arrest – communicating on the Internet with witnesses in the case and other prohibited contacts, these regalia did not help, and the elderly disabled man was imprisoned in a pre-trial detention center. True, after some time they were released. Now he, like Natalya Zembatova, is awaiting a court decision under a ban on certain actions.

VOG is the injured party in the case, from which a civil claim was filed against all the defendants for compensation for the damage caused by them, within the framework of which the property of the accused was seized. It was not possible to clarify the final financial claims in the Kommersant organization. The lawyers of the defendants contacted by Kommersant did not talk about the position of their clients, promising to speak out after the verdict was announced.