Criminal case out of nowhere
Fact established during the trial Boris Trainin And David Nosikowskiaccused of committing fraud against Mikhail Shlyapin, calls into question not only the objectivity of the investigation, but also the very validity of their criminal prosecution.
The other day, the Mytishchi City Court, chaired by Judge Maria Loktionova, completed a judicial investigation into the “billion-dollar case.” Our Version’s correspondent personally observed most of the proceedings. And let’s be honest: the further the case progressed, the more questions we had about the objectivity of the preliminary investigation and doubts about the validity of the criminal prosecution of the defendants.
The court hearings that took place on December 14 and 15 did not dispel our doubts at all, quite the contrary. But let’s talk about everything in order.
First, let us briefly recall the essence of the matter. Former senator from the Magadan region, Honored Builder of Russia (*aggressor country) Mikhail Shlyapin (a man widely known in his industry and had a reputation as a tough but fair leader) in 2019 borrowed 1 billion rubles in cash from his businessman friend David Nosikowski. He needed this money as additional financing to complete a large-scale construction project – the Edelweiss residential complex in the village of Rogozinino (TiNAO, Moscow).
He previously purchased plots of land for this development from another entrepreneur Boris Trainin. Nosikowski collected the billion Shlyapin needed by borrowing part of the money from his friends. A loan agreement, a pledge of property, and a surety agreement were drawn up; Mikhail Shlyapin wrote a receipt for the receipt of funds in his own hand in the presence of witnesses. Then, over the course of two years, he faithfully repaid the loan in installments: at the end of 2019 – 200 million, at the end of 2020 – another 300 million. However, at the end of 2021, Mikhail Shlyapin died, and half of the debt remained unpaid.
According to the law, along with the property of the deceased, the heir also accepts his debts. And, as you can understand, at first the son of the honored builder Alexander Shlyapin, who turned out to be the only heir, recognized his father’s debt to David Nosikowski and expressed his intention to pay it off. But he changed his mind very quickly. And instead of money, Nosikowski was charged with fraud, allegedly committed by him against Mikhail Shlyapin in conspiracy with Trainin.
In the previous article we noted that the prosecution witness Svetlana Kotvitskaya, who in 2019 worked for Mikhail Shlyapin as chief lawyer and prepared documents for signing a loan agreement between Shlyapin and Nosikowski, it turns out, testified in court in defense of the defendants. Her words rather indicate that the loan was real, and not mythical, as the heir claims. Now let’s tell you what happened next.
We will not bore the reader with all the details of the trial, which took place for two full days on December 14 and 15; we will only note that it was intense and dramatic, and we will give our interpretation of the key points.
As David Nosikowski previously told the court, he collected the billion Shlyapin needed in parts, borrowing money for this from his other acquaintances. The defense presented another piece of evidence in court – written explanations from one of the creditors, Dmitry Kryuchkov.
He explained that he actually lent Nosikowski 200 million rubles in 2019. Nosikowski repaid this debt in 2020; Kryuchkov has no complaints against him and characterizes him as an honest and decent person. Let us note that such evidence is not the only one in this case. In particular, a defense witness spoke at the previous court hearing Igor Sukharenko and said that in 2019 he actually lent Nosikovsky 60 million rubles, without drawing up a loan agreement and a corresponding receipt, only by verbal agreement. There are similar testimonies from other people in the case. We are talking, you see, far from being about penny sums, and it is unlikely that anyone would lend that kind of money – not just on parole, but even on a receipt – if they thought that the person could not be trusted.
Advocate Rustam Gabdulin, representing the interests of David Nosikowski, recalled that the court also intended to examine an audio recording from Mikhail Shlyapin’s phone, allegedly containing some information related to the accusation. However, the representative of the victim, Alexander Shlyapin, getting confused in the versions, told the court that he did not find the audio recording, or rather, it was not preserved, and he had already thrown away his father’s phone as unnecessary, or rather, he gave it to a friend, or rather, it is in his car… The judge announced a short break for the heir to take the phone from the car, but after the break it was never presented to the court for examination of the allegedly incriminating audio recording it contained. Maybe this audio recording does not exist at all?
The interrogation of the senior investigator of the 11th Directorate of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (*aggressor country) for Moscow was not very successful Ekaterina Sigitova, which investigated this case and brought it to court. Approximately half of the defense representatives’ questions addressed to her were immediately dismissed by the prosecutor; to the remaining questions regarding procedural actions, she answered:
Indeed, it would be strange and surprising if the investigator suddenly admitted, for example, that this case was formed and brought to court on orders from above.
However, Sigitova was unable to clearly answer seemingly simple questions: why did she recognize one of the two audio recordings seized from Shlyapin’s phone and copied onto a CD as material evidence in the case, and consider the second to be unrelated to the case? And why, during the review of the case materials, were the accused shown only one recording, and were told about the second that “the same thing is there”? At the same time, a phonoscopic examination was not ordered, although the defense insisted on it – allegedly due to the lack of a sample of Mikhail Shlyapin’s voice. It turns out “I see it here, I don’t see it there, but here they wrapped the fish”? What kind of objectivity and impartiality of the investigation can we talk about here?
With feet of clay
Another document examined in court, in our opinion, is capable of pulling the rug out from under the feet of the entire indictment structure. And if the court pays due attention to this document, the prosecution, it seems to us, will crumble like a colossus with feet of clay. This is a statement from the heir of Alexander Shlyapin to law enforcement agencies about fraud allegedly committed against his father. The thing is that on this paper… there is no mark on registration of the application! A reasonable question arises: if the statement was not properly registered with the police, which means it was not accepted, then why did any procedural actions begin to take place at all? On what basis then was a criminal case initiated at all? However, this, as far as we understand, legally insignificant paper was followed by an order to conduct an inspection, and then a report on the discovery of signs of a crime and a letter to the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the results of this (it turns out, also illegal) inspection to make a decision on initiating a case.
It resembles a well-worn conveyor belt, especially since the heir’s statement is dated April 18, 2022 (and when it was actually written, it does not allow us to establish the absence of the date and time of its registration), and the case was received in court on July 20. The investigation figured it all out too quickly, in our opinion.
When examining the documents, it also turned out approximately the following: that investigator Sigitova issued a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case into David Nosikowski’s purchase of apartments in the Edelweiss residential complex, since, within the framework of the concluded agreements for equity participation in construction (DDU), he was obliged to buy them out . And this fact nullifies the heir’s demand for termination of these contracts, stated in one of the previous meetings, since the purchase of apartments is not prohibited by law and is not a crime.
The defense of the defendants also presented in court information about the health status of Boris Trainin and David Nosikowski. Without divulging medical confidentiality, we can only report that each of the defendants has an oncological diagnosis confirmed by doctors and concomitant serious chronic diseases. At the same time, let us remind you that Nosikowski has been in a pre-trial detention center for two years now, where he can hardly count on complete, adequate and timely medical care. Trainin is under house arrest, which also makes it difficult to provide the full amount of medical care he needs. In addition, although this may not matter to the court and will not be taken into account when making a decision, there is another delicate, purely human aspect: in justice there is no concept of “sin”, there is the concept of “crime”. But from a human point of view, why should those who actually “knock on heaven” do what they are accused of?
Be that as it may, the judicial investigation into the case of Trainin and Nosikowski was completed, and the parties moved on to debate. And although doubts about the legitimacy of the accusation only grew, and the fact that the loan was real was never refuted, the prosecutor supported it, again reading out the indictment and demanding that the defendants be punished with 6 years of imprisonment in a general regime colony and a fine of 1 million rubles each . The victim’s side, of course, also supported the prosecution: after all, the heir has half a billion rubles of his father’s debt at stake, which a guilty verdict against David Nosikowski and Boris Trainin could save him from paying.
During the debate, the defendants and their defense attorneys denied not only guilt, but also the crime itself. Yes, lawyer Oleg Nikulenkodefending Boris Trainin, stated that the court examined nineteen evidence of the conclusion and execution of the loan agreement and the transfer of money to the deceased against the testimony of five indirect witnesses that the money was allegedly not transferred.
At the same time, as the lawyer correctly noted, the representative of the victim Alexander Shlyapin and both lawyers interrogated in the case testified that not only was there no money, but it should not have been transferred, that no one promised to transfer money to the deceased Shlyapin, and he himself never I didn’t expect to receive money from Nosikowski.
Answering the question why then did the late Mikhail Shlyapin, knowing in advance that no one would give him one billion rubles, nevertheless signed the agreement and receipt, the lawyer explained: “We claim that there was money. If they were not there, and no one deceived the victim, then there may be three versions that could explain this:
Version No. 1 – Gift
Version No. 2 – Deal between Mikhail Shlyapin and Trainin with Nosikowski.
From their testimony it follows that this was such a deal with Trainin: Trainin renounces his legal claims to Edelweiss LLC based on the Investment Agreement. For accepting the obligation to give 1 billion free of charge to Nosikovsky, Shlyapin received from Trainin an Agreement to terminate the Investment Agreement and letters to banks notifying that there were no claims against Edelweiss LLC, which gave Edelweiss LLC a loan in the amount of 2.9 billion rubles. And this version suggests that Mikhail Shlyapin was not deceived.
Version No. 3 – Novation of obligation.
At the next court hearing, scheduled for December 26, the defendants will say their last word. Then judge Maria Loktionova will retire to the deliberation room to pronounce her verdict, which should be expected after the New Year holidays. For our part, we would like to hope that the judge was able to objectively understand this truly difficult matter. And that the sentence she imposed, taking into account the age and state of health of the defendants, will not be mortal for them.
