The court also assigned real terms to two more defendants, but released them from punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. However, after the verdict, all four defendants went home – the court left Yelkin and Rotanov under house arrest until the verdict came into force, and canceled the preventive measure for two other defendants.

In the second case, the ex-head of Slavyanka OJSC, a 100% subsidiary of the infamous holding “Oboronservis” – and his former subordinates, in fact, were charged with new episodes of the same crimes for which they had already been convicted earlier.

This time, Alexander Elkin, the former general director of Slavyanka and the founder of CJSC Security and Communications (CJSC BiS), who actually performed the role of his assistant, Yulia Rotanova, and the former head of the Slavyanka maintenance department, Konstantin Lapshin, were joined by the former deputy head of logistics support of the Moscow Cadet Corps “Boarding School of the Ministry of Defense” Alexander Migunov.

Depending on their role, they were accused of fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), commercial bribery (part 4 and part 7 of article 204 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), abuse of power (part 2 of article 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and money laundering criminal proceeds (part 3 of article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Contracts for kickbacks

By according to the Investigative Committee of Russiafor the right to conclude contract and subcontract agreements for the repair and maintenance of the barracks and housing stock located throughout the territory of the Russian Federation “Elkin, Lapshin and Rotanova forced the management of 17 commercial organizations from July 2010 to September 2012 to transfer to them as commercial bribery a total of about 385 million rubles, which they disposed of at their own discretion.

And in “May-June 2011, Yelkin concluded contracts and additional agreements with two commercial organizations on terms that were unfavorable for the organization he leads.” As a result, OJSC Slavyanka suffered damage in the amount of almost 134 million rubles.

In addition, according to the prosecution, from December 2009 to January 2014, Elkin, together with Lugansky and Migunov, stole a total of over 223 million rubles. The money was allocated for the provision of services for the comprehensive engineering and technical maintenance of the buildings of the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and hostels located on its balance sheet, as well as for the comprehensive maintenance of the internal premises and administrative buildings of the boarding house and adjacent territories.

The total amount stolen exceeded 740 million rubles. It is worth noting that the defendant in the first “Slavyankiya case”, the ex-general director of Security and Communications CJSC Andrei Lugansky, previously sentenced to seven years in prison, preferred to plead guilty in the second case. He made a deal with the investigation and testified at the trial in the second case of Elkin and others as a witness.

The other four defendants pleaded not guilty. They claimed that they did not take any kickbacks, and there were no thefts. However, the testimony of witnesses was not in their favor. So, they showed that Yelkin demanded that subcontractors share with them. At the same time, he did not voice the amount, and called 20% of the cost of the contracts that the subcontractors had to transfer to the accounts, called “homework”. With those who were indignant, he stopped cooperation. However, there were also contractors from whom Yelkin was afraid to take money: those who were involved in the repair of the buildings of the prosecutor’s office and the tax inspectorate. The contractors called Elkin “dad”. And the defendant Rotanova recorded all the kickbacks in a separate notebook. This also followed from the wiretapping materials available in the case.

After the verdict – home

During the investigation, military investigators found significant funds in the homes and bank accounts of the defendants, both in rubles and in foreign currency, exceeding 1.1 billion rubles. They seized 51 objects of movable and immovable property with a total value of more than half a billion rubles.

By the time the verdict was passed, the ten-year statute of limitations for many episodes had already expired, and literally the other day. In this regard, the court released from punishment Lapshin, who received seven years in prison and a fine of 56 million rubles, and Migunov, who was sentenced to six years in prison with a fine of 500 million rubles. The court canceled the preventive measure.

But the judge left the main defendant Alexander Elkin and Yulia Rotanov under house arrest until the verdict comes into force, that is, until the defendants’ appeal is considered. In this regard, Yelkin, sentenced to 12 years in prison and Rotanov, sentenced to seven years in prison, left the sentence home – they were not taken into custody.

Obviously, both will appeal the verdict. Their lawyers left the court without comment. The defenders of the other convicts said they would make a decision after consulting with their clients. “However, most likely, the verdict will be appealed, since all the defendants took a solidarity position about their innocence,” Lapshin’s lawyer Nodar Dui told Business FM.

JSC “Slavyanka” was considered the largest enterprise in Russia in the field of housing and communal services. It was engaged in the management and maintenance of the housing stock of the Ministry of Defense. This is a 100% subsidiary of the Oboronservis holding. The company owned hotels in 22 regions of the Russian Federation, including the Slavyanka and Lefortovo hotel complexes in Moscow. The company’s turnover in 2012 amounted to more than 25 billion rubles. The company gained notoriety thanks to a corruption scandal in which the protégé of the now former Minister of Defense was involved. Anatoly Serdyukov Evgenia Vasilyeva. Former Head of the Department of Property Relations of the Ministry of Defense in May 2015 received five years in prison for embezzlement in the amount of more than 650 million rubles, but she spent less than a month in custody and released on parole. Vasilyeva served half of her punishment under house arrest.