Despite the complete lack of evidence of guilt, she was unceremoniously sentenced to 2.5 years probation for illegal banking activities (clause “b” of Part 2 of Article 172 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), deciding that she had cashed out 1.4 billion rubles. Her lawyer Andrei Komissarov demands the St. Petersburg City Court to overturn the verdict passed on his client in April 2023 by the Moscow District Court of the city. The appeal hearing will take place on February 7.
The reason for this is not only the lack of proof of the woman’s guilt, but also the pressure on witnesses, the lack of expertise and the testimony of people who, without a twinge of conscience, slandered the defendant. “Take just one example, when a witness assured that he had known Marinenko well for many years. She allegedly told him how she was going to pull off the scam. But if you compare the dates he named, then she told him this when she was 6 years old, which is simply ridiculous,” the lawyer comments on the verdict. But this did not bother judge Svetlana Shamok. She based the verdict on the testimony of this person.
“The sentence itself turned out to be written a language so far from criminal procedural activity that it raises doubts about the judge’s qualifications,” says Andrei Komissarov. “She based her verdict on a body of evidence that is not there, just as there is no testimony pointing to Marinenko’s guilt. We hope that the higher court will look into this case, the ordered nature of which is obvious, and will acquit the woman who was simply exhausted by criminal prosecution.”
As the OGPU Cheka previously wrote, Ekaterina Marinenko sat in the dock after her former friends Maria Kozlova (now Zaitseva) and Yanina Isakova deposited 15 million rubles into the Investigative Department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Admiralteysky District of St. Petersburg. Thus, they decided to get rid of their friend, who had accused them of stealing 70 million rubles from Lawyer 24 LLC and began to seek the initiation of a case. “Nothing personal, just business,” the investigator told Marinenko, who was pregnant with her fourth child, at the first meeting.
On February 7, the St. Petersburg City Court will verify the legality of the conviction in the case of illegal banking activities against the co-founder of a company providing legal support to clients, mother of many children, Ekaterina Marinenko.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”