As it became known to Kommersant, in connection with the death, the criminal prosecution of the former deputy chairman of the Social Insurance Fund (FSS) Sergei Kovalevsky was terminated. The 63-year-old ex-official died in the midst of a trial on charges of attempted embezzlement of almost 2 billion rubles from the FSS. Earlier, also due to non-rehabilitating circumstances, the case of abuse of power in the creation of a unified integrated information system “Sotsstrakh” was dismissed against him, causing damage of almost 4 billion rubles. Through the court, the FSS collected this amount from Sergei Kovalevsky, but he did not have time to pay it.
According to Kommersant, the decision to dismiss the case of Sergei Kovalevsky was recently made by the judge of the Simonovsky Court of the capital, Yulia Okuneva, who had been investigating the ex-official for attempting a particularly large-scale fraud for more than a year (Article 30 and Part 4 of Article 159 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). As follows from the materials of the court, she granted the petition of the son of the former deputy chairman of the FSS and his lawyer, who presented the death certificate of Sergei Kovalevsky.
According to some information, 63-year-old Kovalevsky, who was under house arrest, fell ill with the common flu, but he began to have complications. As a result, he ended up in the hospital, where he died. It is possible that the deterioration of health occurred against the background of another disease. At one time, representatives of Sergei Kovalevsky mentioned that he had been suffering from cancer for a long time.
Both the representatives of the injured party and the state prosecutors did not object to the dismissal of the case, however, they asked that the seizure of property – private houses, apartments and cars of the ex-official and his common-law wife – remain in force.
These provisional measures were sanctioned by the Lefortovsky and later Simonovsky courts. However, judge Yulia Okuneva ruled that at one time, as part of the preliminary investigation of the case, representatives of the FSS filed a civil claim against the accused, but during the previous trial in the case of Sergei Kovalevsky, he was left without consideration. This circumstance did not prevent the fund’s lawyers from filing a claim for almost 4 billion rubles with the Tverskoy Court, which fully satisfied it. However, they did not have time to recover money from Sergei Kovalevsky, since he appealed the decision to the Moscow City Court, but did not live to see it.
Recall that, as Kommersant reported, this was already the second trial in the case of Sergei Kovalevsky in the Simonovsky court. Initially, it arrived there in the winter of 2021, and in addition to the attempted fraud, the defendant was also charged with abuse of official powers that entailed grave consequences (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
Sergei Kovalevsky fully admitted his guilt on the first charge and petitioned for the termination of the criminal prosecution due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. The court went to meet him, at the same time returning the case of an attempted embezzlement of almost 2 billion rubles. FSB investigators for additional investigation, considering that a number of important circumstances of the crime were not indicated in the indictment.
By its decision, the court secured the Sotsstrakh super-large database management system (DBMS), on the ownership of which Sergei Kovalevsky wanted to cash in, in the ownership of the FSS.
This was a landmark decision, since for almost the first time in judicial practice an intellectual system was recognized as a crime weapon, it was seized as property, and later it returned to its native department.
The Prosecutor General’s Office appealed against the return of the case for additional investigation, and the appellate instance returned the case materials to the Simonovsky Court. The criminal prosecution of Sergei Kovalevsky, as Kommersant told Kommersant, was initiated by FSB investigators back in the spring of 2019. However, initially, despite the severity of the charges, even a preventive measure was not chosen for a recognized specialist in the field of digital technologies.
Sergey Kovalevsky came to work in the FSS in 1997, becoming an adviser to the head, and then his deputy. But claims against it arose only in 2013, after which the department began litigation with Sergey Kovalevsky, which the fund won in arbitration in 2014-2015. The claims were related to the digitalization of the fund, including the creation of the Sotsstrakh system, which includes two dozen subsystems that automate and account for all the activities of the Social Insurance Fund. In 2005, the deputy head of the fund registered the rights to use the system, but at the same time hid from both the FSS and Rospatent that its algorithm itself was patented back in 1991.
Sergei Kovalevsky, according to FSB investigators, managed to receive about 3.7 billion rubles. budget money, and after the dismissal demanded, however, unsuccessfully, another 1.7 billion rubles.
At the same time, he threatened the regional divisions of the FSS with criminal prosecution for violation of copyright and related rights (Article 146 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The ex-official denied his guilt, but then ended up in a pre-trial detention center when he was suspected of trying to put pressure on a former assistant in order to correct her earlier testimony. After that, Sergei Kovalevsky confessed and was released under house arrest. At the same time, the former deputy chairman of the FSS said that he did not claim any rights to the Sotsstrakh DBMS, and he was ready to voluntarily give all the documents for them and developments.
