Alexey Prokopenko moved out of his house in Miami to a colony

The Kirovsky District Court of Saratov issued a verdict in a criminal case against the former head of the city administration, Alexei Prokopenko.

He is accused of organizing embezzlement on an especially large scale. According to the prosecution, the official contributed to the creation of management companies that collected money from the population, but did not transfer it to resource-supplying organizations. The criminal case was opened in 2015. Last year, the same court completely justified Mr. Prokopenko, but the court of appeal returned the cases for a new trial. The lawyer of the former official intends to appeal the court decision.

The judge of the Kirovsky District Court of Saratov, Vitaly Romanov, sentenced the former head of the city administration, Alexei Prokopenko, to seven years in a penal colony with restriction of liberty for one year and a fine of 700,000 rubles. The reading of the verdict took Judge Vitaly Romanov one and a half working days. According to the court decision, Prokopenko, together with his accomplices, did not transfer more than 40 million rubles to resource-supplying organizations. payments of residents of Saratov for utilities.

The verdict was handed down only after a second consideration. In June 2021, the Kirovsky District Court fully acquitted the former city manager, considering that the indictment was based solely on the testimony of other defendants in the criminal case, who later retracted their words and stated that they had slandered Alexei Prokopenko “in order to improve their position and under psychological impact of law enforcement officers”. The court noted that the prosecution did not provide other evidence of the guilt of the former mayor.

The criminal case against Aleksey Prokopenko was initiated in early 2015. At that time, he was charged with Part 4 of Art. 159 (fraud on an especially large scale) and Art. 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (legalization of funds obtained by criminal means). According to investigators, in 2012, at the suggestion of Alexei Prokopenko, management companies Stroykomplekt LLC and Continent 2011 LLC were established in the Zavodskoy district of Saratov. They entered into agreements with Settlement and Payment Center LLC, the center assumed obligations on behalf and at the expense of Stroykomplekt LLC to collect funds from residents for utilities.

The collected funds were withdrawn into cash by transferring to the accounts of Triada LLC, Standard-S LLC, Leader LLC, Top Line LLC, STK-Group LLC and others “for fictitious reasons.”

The victims in the criminal case were PJSC “T Plus” (at the time of the crime, JSC “Volzhskaya TGC”), Municipal Unitary Enterprise “Saratovvodokanal”, LLC SPGES.

vzsar.ru, 12/09/2014, “Investigators found Prokopenko’s property in Miami, Budapest and Sosenki”: The investigative team managed to find out that during his work in the structures of the administration of Saratov (district and city), Alexei Prokopenko managed to seriously improve his well-being. A house was purchased in Miami (USA), an apartment in Budapest (Hungary), a cottage was built in the village of Sosenki in the Volzhsky district of Saratov. “Before he began working as the head of the administration of the Zavodskoy district, this citizen did not have any serious business and lived in an apartment on Sovetskaya Street,” a source in the regional prosecutor’s office noted. “Before coming to power, he owned the Egoist store, which was closed due to unprofitability. One of the main sources of income could be a communal monster – the Stroykomplekt management company, whose rise is associated with the name of the then head of the administration of the Zavodskoy district, Alexei Prokopenko, the source believes. — Inset K.ru

The investigation considered employees of management companies and Settlement and Payment Center LLC Alexander Isaev, Sergey Birgin, Andrey Gnusarev and Irina Ripinena as accomplices. In 2017, they were found guilty of fraud and money laundering. The court found that through Settlement and Payment Center LLC, the defendants stole 81.9 million rubles that belonged to resource-supplying organizations and were intended to be transferred to them as payment for services rendered and resources supplied to management companies of apartment buildings in the Zavodskoy district of Saratov. One of the witnesses in the case, the former founder and director of Settlement and Payment Center LLC Boris Bunyaev, committed suicide at the end of November 2016.

Alexander Isaev

4vsar.ru, 12/06/2017, “Accomplices of ex-head of Saratov Prokopenko found guilty of economic crimes”: The court recognized the arguments and evidence of the prosecution and appointed defendant Alexander Isaev 7 years in a penal colony and a fine of 1 million rubles, defendant Sergei Birgin – 7 years in prison with a fine of 1 million rubles, Andrey Gnusarev – 4.5 years of general regime with a fine of 700 thousand rubles, and Irina Ripinena – 4 years of general regime and a fine of 700 thousand rubles. All defendants will also be subject to a restriction of freedom for a period of 1.5 years. — Inset K.ru

After the initiation of a criminal case, Aleksey Prokopenko fled from the investigation and was put on the international wanted list. The case against him was separated into a separate proceeding. In April 2015, the Kirovsky District Court arrested in absentia Alexey Prokopenko, and on March 14, 2019 he voluntarily appeared to the investigative department for the Oktyabrsky district of Saratov with a statement in which he asked for an objective look into his criminal case. He was taken into custody and later released under house arrest.

First, Prokopenko was charged with causing damage to T Plus in the amount of 507 million rubles, then it was reduced to 37 million rubles, and the case was reclassified to part 3 of Art. 33, part 4 of Art. 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (organization of embezzlement on an especially large scale).

In July 2021, the Saratov Regional Court received an appeal from the prosecutor’s office and an appeal from PJSC T Plus. They insisted on the impossibility of an acquittal, despite the fact that the rest of the defendants in the case were found guilty.

At the debate last Tuesday, the state prosecution asked the court to find Alexei Prokopenko guilty and sentence him to eight years in prison, a fine of 900 thousand rubles. and a ban on holding leadership positions in state and municipal bodies.

Alexei Prokopenko’s lawyer, Kira Afanasyeva, told Kommersant that she intended to appeal the court’s decision, she declined to comment further.