Alexey Prokopenko, former city manager of Saratov, convicted of embezzlement of utility bills, may become bankrupt. To declare bankrupt an ex-official sent to a colony for 7 years is required by PJSC T Plus.
The resource-supplying organization filed a bankruptcy lawsuit against Prokopenko on December 16, claiming 25.3 million rubles. Previously, heat suppliers sued their debtor in the usual way in a court of general jurisdiction and won the case.
The T Plus lawsuit was accepted for proceedings on December 23, the first court hearing will take place on January 31. The circumstances of the debt in the court documents are not yet reflected.
Earlier, Aleksey Prokopenko was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to 7 years in prison and a fine of 700,000 rubles. Now he is in a colony, IK No. 33 of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Saratov Region has been involved in the case as a third party.
As lawyer Stanislav Zaitsev, who acted as Prokopenko’s defender back in 2014, explained to Kommersant, when he was accused of negligence because of the Novostroy houses, most likely T Plus wants to recover the amount of damages from the ex-official. The fact that Prokopenko is in a colony is not a hindrance to bankruptcy, and the claims of thermal workers against him are simply explained – at least something can be recovered from the former city manager, at least through the sale of his property.
The investigation into the Prokopenko case has been going on since 2015. Prokopenko and other persons were charged with the theft of utility bills received on the accounts of Settlement and Payment Center LLC. This happened, as the investigation and the court concluded, in 2012, when Prokopenko was still head of the administration of the Zavodskoy district. At the suggestion of Prokopenko, according to the investigation, the companies LLC Stroykomplekt and LLC Continent 2011 were created, which entered into agreements with the Settlement and Payment Center, on its behalf accepted payments for utilities from citizens and withdrawn the collected money into cash. through one-day firms. T Plus, together with LLC SPGES and MUPP Saratovvodokanal, were recognized as victims in the case.
There were five defendants, not counting Prokopenko. One of them committed suicide during the investigation, four more were found guilty of fraud and money laundering in 2017 and received real prison terms. From 2014 to March 2019, Aleksey Prokopenko hid from the investigation and was even put on the international wanted list, but then returned and voluntarily surrendered to justice, stating that he was innocent and expected a fair trial.
At first, Themis was on the side of Prokopenko. In June 2021, the Kirovsky District Court acquitted him, concluding that the entire charge was based only on the testimony of other defendants, who themselves admitted that they had slandered the former official under pressure from investigators. But this verdict was appealed together by the regional prosecutor’s office and the current initiator of the bankruptcy of T Plus PJSC. The new composition of the Kirovsky District Court delivered a guilty verdict, assessing the damage from the actions of Prokopenko and other defendants at 40 million rubles. It is worth remembering that at the beginning of the investigation, the amount was many times higher; in 2015, 507 million rubles of damage was reported.
An attempt to appeal the verdict in June 2022 did not bring any results. The Saratov Regional Court upheld it. Prokopenko continues to adhere to the previous position, considering his case to be politically biased.