Judge Anton Stepanov announced the operative part: appoint the accused five years in a penal colony with a two-year ban on holding senior government positions. He was also deprived of his class rank – senior adviser to justice. Prigarov will pay a fine of 200 thousand rubles.
He received such a term for fraud (Article 159 part 4). Under another article No. 291 – for a bribe – the judge completely acquitted him, as well as his alleged accomplice – Oleg Vartanov.
Prigarov will go to serve his real sentence in two years, when his son turns 14. He was also credited with the time spent in custody (a day and a half) and house arrest (a day for a day).
Part of the property was seized from Prigarov, including two rifled and one hunting carbines and a smoothbore gun.
Prosecutors Dina Bakhteeva, Sergei Verbin and Dmitry Simanovich asked for the accused 10 years in a strict regime colony and a fine of 51 million 360 thousand rubles with a five-year restriction to hold public office.
Recall that Prigarov is being tried on two lawsuits.
The first of them: businessman Alexei Chugunov was building a log house for himself near Andreevsky Ponds on 9th Dachnaya Street, when he was under threat of being prosecuted for fraud. As he later wrote in the lawsuit, he allegedly turned for help to his neighbor Andrey Prigarov, who at that moment worked as a deputy prosecutor (and then a prosecutor) of the Kirovsky district of Saratov. According to Chugunov, as a payment for labor, he gave Prigarov an unfinished log house. But it was a surprise for him when the court nevertheless sent him to a colony. Chugunov considered that Prigarov could deceive him.
It soon became clear that the younger brother of the prosecutor, Roman Prigarov, lives in the house.
Chugunov several times asked to make the process either open to the press or closed, hinting at some kind of threat against him, but without specifying what he was afraid of. Ultimately, at the last open meeting, he said that he “had to give up the log house in order to save Kumysnaya Polyana from being cut down.”
Prigarov is also being tried under another article. According to investigators, he was allegedly supposed to receive a bribe from the management of MUSPP “Ritual”. Recall that the director of the MUSPP, Mikhail Shulekin, was detained in December 2020 as part of operational and investigative measures in the case of the prosecutor of the Kirovsky district of the city, Andrey Prigarov.
According to the prosecution, the Chamber of Control and Accounts of the city of Saratov revealed violations in the activities of the MUSPP. Allegedly, after this, Prigarov promised to help so that Shulekin would not lose his position. In exchange for this, Shulekin had to give him 500 thousand rubles a month. The businessman Oleg Vartanov acted as an intermediary in the transfer of the bribe.
Vartanov, according to investigators, every month “took” this amount for Prigarov, coming to Shulekin’s office at 70 Kiseleva Street. According to an agreement between Vartanov and Prigarov, Vartanov had to temporarily keep the money, investing in the construction of the crematorium on Elshansky cemetery, which also appears in the criminal case as the Farewell House.
Shulekin said that Prigarov had received 7.7 million rubles from him since December 2017.
The video recording of the meeting was studied in court: there, the witness claimed that, being the director of MUSPP Ritual, he actually founded Ritual LLC and introduced Oleg Vartanov to the founders, whom he called Andrey Prigarov’s confidant. Oleg Vartanov allegedly took half of the monthly profits of the private “Ritual” for a year and a half, and then invested them in the construction of the “House of Ritual Services” near the Eshlansky cemetery. […] The share of Oleg Vartanov in Ritual was estimated at 2.5 million rubles. Thus, the total amount of the alleged bribe was 10.2 million.
Prigarov was detained precisely on this charge. The lawyers throughout the process tried to prove that it was Shulekin and Vartanov who invested their money, and not Prigarov. In this case, the guilt of the former prosecutor would be removed.
Almost two years former prosecutor was under house arrest, where he is still being held (until April 12, 2023).
“He can avoid jail time altogether,” an informed source close to the court told OM. “The fact is that the statute of limitations for the case expires in September 2023, since the episodes incriminated to Prigarov took place in 2013. Until September, the lawyers will delay in the form of an appeal, and then he just stays free and won’t pay the fine.”
The accused himself told OM that he was partially satisfied with the verdict.
“Most of all, I was outraged that I was deprived of the title of senior adviser to justice. I will seek its restoration,” said Prigarov.
The alleged accomplice of the prosecutor Oleg Vartanov was also released. — Inset K.ru
“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud), the damage is only 47 thousand rubles. I assume that they took the first examination that was carried out during the investigation as a basis. We all know that the conclusion concerned a real estate object – residential houses … There is an unfinished log house, not put into operation, without a land plot, recognized as an unauthorized construction, without a price.
Even if someone sees in my actions the corpus delicti according to the 159th, then we are talking only about 47 thousand. But five years in prison? For what? For a bundle of firewood? Revoke the title of Senior Counselor of Justice. This is a tragedy for me and my family,” Andrey Prigarov said and repeated that he had not committed the crimes he was accused of. […] Andrey Prigarov said he was going to appeal against the guilty verdict.
“It turns out that we trust Chugunov (Alexey Chugunov, the applicant for the episode with the log house – ed.), repeatedly convicted, more than the words of a former prosecutor who has worked for 20 years,” he added. […] Even at the beginning of the current trial, Andrei Prigarov stated that Chugunov allegedly enjoys the patronage of the regional prosecutor’s office (it is headed by Sergei Filipenko) and wrote a statement at the insistence of representatives of the supervisory authority. — Inset K.ru
Prigarov himself initially pleaded not guilty to any of the charges. In addition, the prosecutor unexpectedly received support from the regional judiciary. The Volzhsky and Leninsky district courts of Saratov unanimously rejected the investigators’ petitions to place Prigarov in custody for each episode. And the Saratov Regional Court rejected both appeal submissions of the prosecutor’s office in turn, indicating that Prigarov’s involvement in the commission of crimes was not confirmed. Fyodor Telegin, who at that time held the position of chairman of the regional court (he retired in honor in June 2021), even considered it necessary through his press service explainthat the petition of the investigation is based solely on an unconfirmed denunciation. In turn, the regional prosecutor’s office published a press release on the unacceptability of any manifestations of corruption in its ranks. At the same time the public briefedthat by order of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation dated January 14, 2021, Prigarov was dismissed for violating the oath, as well as for committing an act discrediting the honor of a prosecutor’s worker. […]
Prigarov has worked in the prosecutor’s office since October 2000. He started as an assistant, senior assistant to the prosecutor of the Leninsky district of Saratov. Then he served as a senior investigator, investigator for particularly important cases of the Leninsky District Prosecutor’s Office, and Deputy Prosecutor of the Leninsky District. In 2013–2018, he served as First Deputy Prosecutor of Saratov. In February 2018, he was appointed to the position of the Kirovsky District Prosecutor of Saratov. — Inset K.ru