Odesa court acquits ex-investigator accused of corruption

The Kyiv District Court of Odesa acquitted a former senior police investigator of charges of influence peddling.

This was reported by Court Reporter with reference to the verdict of June 11.

In 2017, a road accident with two fatalities occurred in the city of Reni, Odesa region. A year later, one of the participants wrote a statement that the senior investigator of the Main Department of the National Police in Odesa Oblast demanded $5,000 from him, otherwise he promised to make him guilty. A statement was also written by the sister of the accident participant, who was given the investigator's phone number by a lawyer.

Law enforcement officers documented how the sister handed over $1,34 to the lawyer. The lawyer later testified and claimed that he had no agreements with the investigator, it was his fee, and the woman was a fraud because she gave him money in one dollar bills.

At the court hearing, the woman who gave the money said that the investigator gave her the lawyer's phone number, telling her to call him, but did not mention his name. But the lawyer didn't know or understand anything, so she was forced to give his name. Then the lawyer confirmed that he knew this investigator, that he was cooperating with him and would help her. The lawyer said that she had to pay 6 thousand dollars. She denied that the agreement was for five, but the lawyer said it would be six, because she had to negotiate with the judge, prosecutor, and supervisor. The woman claimed that she had given the lawyer $5,000 and that she had gone to law enforcement because she was afraid for her brother, who could have been imprisoned.

The former investigator pleaded not guilty and said that the man had come to familiarize himself with the case of the accident. Then the man's sister called and asked to meet him, saying she had $3,000 to resolve the issue, but he refused.

In the end, the court ruled that the protocols based on the results of the covert investigative (detective) action were inadmissible as evidence. Second, the court believed that there was a provocation.

The court found the connection between the police investigator and the lawyer to be unproven and, on the contrary, refuted by the lawyer's testimony in court. There were no connections between the phone numbers of the lawyer and the investigator at all.

Кирило Бойко