The First Court of Appeal of General Jurisdiction questioned the verdict handed down by 81-year-old Margarita Butakova, who helped her son-in-law, State Duma deputy from the Just Russia party Vadim Belousov, receive a record bribe in modern history – 3.253 billion rubles. The lawyers of the pensioner managed to convince the court that due to her advanced age and the covid she had suffered, she could not fully defend herself in the process, and now the psychiatrists have to decide whether to judge Ms. Butakova further or treat her. Interestingly, if confirmed, the mother-in-law’s illness automatically cancels the sentence of her son-in-law, who received ten years in prison. Mr. Belousov, however, is indifferent: they have not been able to find him for six months.
As the participants in the process told Kommersant, representatives of the main convict Vadim Belousov did not even have time to file an appeal about their claims to the verdict of the Moscow City Court. The fact is that the first, according to the regulations, were the defenders of Margarita Butakova, the elderly mother-in-law of the deputy, who helped him, as it was established by the court of first instance, to collect bribes and included the TFR in the same criminal group with the politician.
The lawyers explained to the Court of Appeal that until recently they had no doubts about the mental health of their ward. She was absolutely sane during the period of the crimes she was charged with from 2010 to 2014, and in 2019, after the initiation of a criminal case, she confidently passed a comprehensive forensic psychiatric examination. The mental health of the woman, according to her defenders, was undermined by the meetings in the Moscow City Court, which began in December 2020, and the covid that was postponed shortly after.
Thus, in the process, which lasted one year and nine months, the defendant, according to the defense, entered in an inadequate state.
She poorly understood the questions asked of her, was confused in the testimony, and, as one of them put it, “there was no question of directing the actions of her defenders.” Lawyers, according to them, regularly brought to the Moscow City Court documents confirming the mental disorder of the defendant, including a certificate of her registration in a psycho-neurological dispensary at the place of residence in Chelyabinsk, but the judge of the Moscow City Court ignored the complaints and sentenced, presumably, the patient to a four-year suspended sentence.
The appeal agreed with the opinion of Ms. Butakova’s defense and ordered her a repeated comprehensive forensic psychiatric examination. Doctors will have to establish whether the defendant was sane during the process and whether she is currently. At the same time, Margarita Butakova, who is still considered a bribe taker, will first be examined on an outpatient basis, and then inpatiently, if experts have disagreements about her condition.
“The investigation believed that relatives committed the crimes they were accused of in a group, and they were also tried in a group,” Vadim Belousov’s lawyer Vyacheslav Plakhotnyuk explained to Kommersant. “Thus, Margarita Butakova’s inadequate testimony, possibly given by her due to mental illness, not only her to defend herself, but also predetermined the harsh sentence passed on my principal.
According to the lawyer, now not only the court decision handed down to Ms. Butakova, but also the verdict of the Moscow City Court as a whole will depend on the conclusions of the experts.
“If doctors recognize Margarita Butakova as sane, we will simply continue the proceedings we have begun on appeal,” said Veaceslav Plahotniuc. “If the result of the examination is different, we will have to cancel the entire sentence.” In what format the re-trial will take place, the defender could not even guess.
The fact is that the investigation of the possible crimes of a mentally ill person requires a special judicial procedure and he can only be sentenced to compulsory medical measures. At the same time, Vadim Belousov, healthy but absent since August last year, is not available for the full-time process. Let us recall that the deputy disappeared before the Moscow City Court sentenced him and was put on the wanted list.
Recall that the Just Russian deputy Belousov, who, by the way, was not deprived of his mandate due to the uncertainty of his current status, was recognized by the Moscow City Court as a record-breaking bribe-taker. In the process, which ended in August last year, it was established that Vadim Belousov, Margarita Butakova, and Mikhail Yurevich, then acting governor of the Chelyabinsk region, who was in the same criminal group with them, received from representatives of a large road construction company from May 2010 to January 2014 holding 3.2 billion rubles. bribes for general patronage and assistance to merchants when they conclude state and municipal contracts for the construction, repair and maintenance of roads in the region. For participation in corruption schemes, all three were charged under the relevant Part 6 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, however, it was not possible to fully bring to justice any of the bribe-takers. Mr. Yurevich fled to the UK back in 2017, the search for Mr. Belousov, who was sentenced to a ten-year term, was also unsuccessful, and the most severe “punishment” for 81-year-old Mrs. Butakova can only be a court order to continue treatment, which she already started.
