Odesa court toughens sentence for police officer who misappropriated material evidence

The Odesa Court of Appeal has increased the sentence for a police colonel who was convicted of misappropriating a Toyota Corolla that was material evidence in a robbery case.

According to the court's verdict, published on the Opendatabot platform, the Kominternivskyi District Court of Odesa Oblast last year found the police officer guilty of illegal possession of a vehicle and sentenced him to five years in prison without confiscation of property.

However, his actual sentence was replaced by probation for three years. Prosecutors did not object to this sentence, but insisted that the convict should also be banned from working in the police for three years and stripped of his police lieutenant colonel rank. Instead, the prosecutor's office emphasized that the court of first instance had unreasonably recognized the commission of the crime under martial law as an aggravating circumstance. The court also agreed with these claims of the prosecutor's office.

Circumstances of the case

In 2016, the police launched an investigation into a robbery in Odesa region. Investigators found out that the robbers were traveling in different cars, one of which was a Toyota Corolla with Moldovan license plates, owned by a Moldovan citizen. The car was seized and sent to the impound lot.

The robbers committed several more crimes in Odesa and Chernivtsi regions, and in 2017-2018, the car was transported from the impound lot to the territory of the private enterprise "Third Bus Park" in Dobroslav. From there, it was taken by the convict, who came to the territory of the enterprise and took it for official use.

He drove that car until patrol police stopped him in 2022 and found out that the car he was driving was not his and the license plates did not belong to this car. The car was seized again and taken to the impound lot.

Кирило Бойко