Nikolai Evdokimov did not insure himself from prison
A former employee of the Social Insurance Fund and one of the authors of the Sotsstrakh information system used by the FSS turned out to be a fraudster and registered the rights to the components of this system in order to receive deductions for its use. The court found him guilty and sent him to prison for seven years, simultaneously writing him a fine of half a million rubles.
swindler caught
The Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow recognized Nikolay Evdokimov guilty of gross fraud, writes “Kommersant”. This is a major IT specialist who at the beginning of the 21st century held senior positions in the Social Insurance Fund (FSS), and one of the developers of the unified integrated information system (EIIS) Sotsstrakh.
In the FSS, Evdokimov rose to the rank of deputy head of the Department for the operation and maintenance of information technology, and he began climbing the career ladder in the fund in 2003 from the post of deputy head of the software department of the Information Support Department.
55-year-old at the time of the publication of the material, Evdokimov, even before joining the FSS, led the Open Information Technologies LLC company, which later changed its name to Nist. This is the developer of the EIIS Sotsstrakh, and while working at the FSS, Evdokimov was responsible for installing, maintaining and ensuring the operability of the EIIS in the fund.
What is the meaning of fraud
According to Kommersant, Evdokimov had direct access to the source code of the EIIS. And since he is a programmer by education, he was able to make any changes he needed to this system.
In 2014, after the dismissal of the FSS, Nikolai Evdokimov registered for his company Nist the exclusive ownership of dozens of Sotsstrakh subsystems. In total, the company became the owner of 46 subsystems. These actions served as a pretext for filing a lawsuit against him.
It all started with a civil claim by the FSS for damages, which, according to the fund’s estimates, ranged from 213 to 310 million rubles. The document also contained a demand for the arrest of all software products without exception registered to the Nist company.
In addition, the plaintiff demanded that the state registration of 46 Social Insurance subsystems be declared invalid.
Final decision of the court
The case against Evdokimov has been under consideration in the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow since the end of 2022. Evdokimov himself was forced to sign an undertaking not to leave during the investigation.
The court eventually found the defendant guilty and awarded him a fine of 500 thousand rubles. and imprisonment for seven years. In addition, by a court decision, Evdokimov was deprived of the right to hold positions related to organizational, administrative and administrative functions for two years.
After the verdict, Evdokimov was sent to a pre-trial detention center. He himself did not admit his guilt at the time of publication of the material.
Evdokimov was charged with violating Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. As a result, the judge did not pass the most severe possible sentences – this crime is punishable by a prison term of up to 10 years and a fine of up to 1 million rubles.
Defense opposes
Evdokimov’s lawyer, Maria Zazirnaya, told Kommersant that the defense considers the court’s verdict “contradicting the law and common sense.” She added that the FSS, according to the “logic of the verdict”, for nine years “disposes of its exclusive rights to the programs included in the EIIS Sotsstrakh by concluding license agreements with contractors under state contracts for the modernization of the EIIS”, that is, “commits multibillion-dollar unjustified spending of budgetary funds.
The lawyer emphasized that the Dorogomilovsky District Court had previously considered this case and in 2018 demanded that it be returned to the prosecutor due to the absence of “a description in the prosecution of what and how was stolen from the victim.” The court cited a 2014 arbitration court decision that stated that the FSS “is the copyright holder of the programs, despite their registration in the Rospatent register to another person,” Yevdokimova’s lawyer told the publication. “Until this decision of the arbitration court is canceled, it cannot be recognized that the FSS of the Russian Federation has lost the rights to programs,” she added, noting that exclusive rights to the results of intellectual activity, including software, “do not may be subject to theft. “Therefore, this sentence is an example of ignoring the law,” Maria Zazirnaya summed up.
Not the first time
Before Evdokimov, another high-ranking employee of the FSS was brought to criminal responsibility – Sergei Kovalevsky. This is a former adviser to the head of the FSS, as well as his deputy chairman. At the beginning of the previous decade, Kovalevsky was accused of abuse of power, which entailed grave consequences and attempted fraud (part 3 of article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and article 30 and part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and the court sided with the FSS.
Everything was connected with the activities of Kovalevsky at the beginning of the 21st century and the digitalization of the FSS, as well as with the mentioned Sotsstrakh system.
Kovalevsky in 2005 registered the rights to use this system for himself, without telling anyone that its algorithm was patented back in 1991. As a result, over the years of using Sotsstrakh, Kovalevsky, according to the FSB, received within 3.7 billion rubles . from the budget.
It is noteworthy that Kovalevsky, unlike Evdokimov, admitted his guilt, but the criminal case against him under one of the articles was terminated due to the statute of limitations. The verdict on the second charge against Kovalevsky will never be handed down – he died in the spring of 2023.
