The investigation of the criminal case against Elena Kondrat, a former judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court, wife of ex-Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Nikolai Kondrat, has been completed. She is accused of mediating the transfer of a $50,000 bribe to her colleague Elena Makhalkina. The money was transferred for the exclusion of several individuals and legal entities from the list of joint liability in the case, which was considered by Ms. Makhalkina. She was also recognized as a victim in the criminal case of Elena Kondrat’s son, Nikolai Kondrat, who, according to investigators, was preparing her murder.
The criminal case against the former arbitration judge was investigated by the employees of the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR in Moscow from November 2021. He was excited personally by the chairman of the committee, Alexander Bastrykin, who received the go-ahead for this from the Higher Qualification Board of Judges. Six months later, the Supreme Court sanctioned the arrest of Elena Kondrat, and since then the woman’s preventive measure has not changed.
Today, the Main Investigative Committee of the ICR announced the completion of the investigation. According to Kommersant, the day before, the ex-judge’s lawyers signed a protocol on completion of familiarization with 13 volumes of her criminal case.
It is interesting that at one time the accused figured in them as Svetlana Khondrat. This happened after the woman, according to the FSB, changed her personal data during a trip to Grozny. However, the lawyers managed to prove that this was a mistake, and by the end of the investigation, the defendant’s surname was returned.
There is only one episode in the case, which refers to 2020. The actions of Elena Kondrat on it are qualified as mediation in receiving a bribe (part 4 of article 291.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
As follows from the materials of the investigation, in the summer of 2020, judge Kondrat, by virtue of her position, learned that her colleague Elena Makhalkina, who was considering the bankruptcy case of the Transport Construction Supply Department, intends to bring a number of persons to subsidiary liability.
According to investigators, for $50,000, Elena Kondrat offered Ms. Makhalkina, with whom she was friends, to exclude the people and companies she needed from this list. The first proposal was made in September 2020 at the Lastochka restaurant on Luzhnetskaya Embankment, where the judges dined.
Subsequently, during telephone conversations and personal meetings, Elena Kondrat, according to the ICR, continued to convince Ms. Makhalkina to make the required decision, without naming the customer of the corrupt proposal. It was never established by the investigation.
On October 12, 2020, Ms. Makhalkina wrote a statement to the FSB, and then all the negotiations of the women took place under the control of operatives until the transfer of money, which took place on the evening of October 18, 2020 in the courtyard of the house where Elena Kondrat lived. Then she was detained, but, given her status, she was soon released.
As noted in the TFR, the accused “actively opposed the course of the investigation.” So, Elena Kondrat did not appear at the investigative actions and even left Moscow, in connection with which she was put on the federal wanted list and detained again.
Elena Kondrat does not admit her guilt. And her defense believes that the main evidence in the case was obtained in violation of the requirements of the law, in particular the law “On operational-investigative activities.” According to lawyer Aleksey Kovalev, at the time of the operational experiment, there was no decision of the Supreme Court in relation to his client allowing such events. On this basis, the defense demands the exclusion of “illegally obtained evidence from the case file.”
According to the defense, Elena Kondrat gave her colleague not a bribe, but money that she did not have enough to buy an apartment. Elena Makhalkina, the representative of the accused notes, asked for it herself.
It is worth noting that Ms. Makhalkina appears in another criminal case – the son of Elena Kondrat Nikolai. The young man, according to investigators, was preparing the murder of a judge who testified against his mother. On the car of Elena Makhalkina, at the direction of Kondrat Jr., GPS trackers were installed to track his routes. This case is now being heard in the Moscow Regional Court.
The materials of the case of Elena Kondrat were transferred to the prosecutor’s office for approval of the charges.