Prosecutor dismissed in Odesa region for failing to prosecute rapists of a minor

The Qualification and Disciplinary Commission of Prosecutors has decided to dismiss the prosecutor of the Bilyaevsky District Prosecutor's Office in Odesa region.

This was reported by the Court Reporter publication with reference to the Commission's decision.

According to the Commission's decision, in the summer of 2020, a 13-year-old girl and her mother reported to the Bilyayivka Police Department that she had been raped by two unknown men.

As it turned out, the girl was riding with the men in a car and drinking alcohol. Later, near the river in the back seat of the car, the girl voluntarily had sexual intercourse with one of the men. The other man, she claims, forced her to have sexual intercourse. The men confirmed in written explanations that they had sexual relations with the minor, but denied that it was forced.

On August 11, 2020, the prosecutor changed the qualification of the criminal offense from rape by a group of persons (Article 152(3) of the Criminal Code) to sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 (Article 155(1) of the Criminal Code). The initial qualification provided for 7 to 12 years in prison, and the amended qualification provided for restriction or imprisonment for up to 5 years.

On January 14, 2022, the head of the Bilyaevsky District Prosecutor's Office changed the composition of the group of prosecutors and on February 10, the investigator closed the criminal proceedings. On March 29, 2022, the investigator's decision to close the case was canceled. However, on September 8, 2022, the same prosecutor again became the head of the prosecutor's team in this case, and in January 2023, he did not approve the investigator's suspicion with the remark that the men's actions should have been qualified as rape (part 4 of Article 152 of the Criminal Code). Thus, the prosecutor contradicted his own decision to reclassify the criminal offense.

Over the past five years, no investigations involving potential suspects have been conducted. In 2025, the decision to mitigate the qualification of the crime was canceled. Due to the ineffectiveness of the investigation, the case was transferred to the police and the prosecutor's office of Odesa region.

The prosecutor, for his part, did not see any violations. He said that he had an unfriendly relationship with the former head of the district prosecutor's office, which is why the latter filed several disciplinary complaints against him. He did not approve the suspicion because, in his opinion, it was still necessary to conduct a number of investigative actions to find out the victim's age, but at the same time clarified that no investigative actions were conducted because the victim had moved abroad and had not lived in Ukraine for a long time and did not want to participate in the investigation.

The Commission ultimately concluded that the prosecutor had in fact removed himself from performing the powers of a prosecutor, imitated official activities and misled the leadership of the district and regional prosecutor's offices regarding the proper procedural guidance in criminal proceedings. As a result, two possible suspects in the crime against a minor managed to avoid criminal liability.

The Commission decided that the prosecutor's disciplinary misconduct was incompatible with further holding any position in the agency.

On April 23, 2025, he was punished for his work misconduct by being banned from promotions for a period of one year. In 2024, he was not brought to disciplinary responsibility only due to the expiration of the term.

Кирило Бойко