In Sochi, Elena Spasskaya and Mikhail Batrakov announced guilty

Today, in Sochi, court found Elena Spasskaya, Director of the Municipal Unitary Enterprise (MUE) "Directorate of Shopping Mall Service", and entrepreneur Mikhail Batrakov guilty of committing a large-scale fraud. Elena Spasskaya was sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment, and Mikhail Batrakov to 6 years of imprisonment.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on December 22, 2011, Elena Spasskaya was arrested on charges of fraud. During that time, she underwent three surgeries in oncology hospital. At the court session, held on June 25, Elena Spasskaya and Mikhail Batrakov refused to admit their guilt. On July 9, Gennady Karlyshev and Vitaly Shipulin, the lawyers of the defendants, claimed the innocence of their clients and the fabrication of the case.

Prosecutors asked to sentence the defendants to actual imprisonment to be served in a common security colony and to sentence Elena Spasskaya to 5 years of imprisonment and Mikhail Batrakov to 8 years of imprisonment.

"Elena Spasskaya sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment"

For each episode with regard to victims Natalia Dryomova and Lilia Pokazanyeva, Mikhail Batrakov was sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment. In total, by adding the terms, Mikhail Batrakov was finally sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment to be served in a common security penal colony.

The total period of Mikhail Batrakov's detention in custody comprised 6 months and 15 days. The court counted it to the term of sentence.

Elena Spasskaya was sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment to be served in a common security colony. The sentence is to be counted starting from December 20, 2011.

Besides, the court obliged Mikhail Batrakov to pay to Natalia Dryomova 2,663,860.03 roubles for damage, inflicted to her, according to the court's opinion.

The court obliged Mikhail Batrakov and Elena Spasskaya to jointly pay to Lilia Pokazanyeva the amounts of 11,500,000 roubles and of 500,000 roubles for moral damage.

"Civil cases intentionally turned into criminal ones"

The defendants and their defenders expressed their indignation about the verdict of the court. They continue to deny their guilt and argued that the case had been fabricated by investigator S. Kovalenko and his chief A. Djagaev in the interests of the powerful clan of the Dryomov family and their lawyer Roman Yakovlev.

According to the convicted persons and their lawyers, there was an attempt of raider seizure of Mikhail Batrakov's profitable business of Limited Liability Company (LLC) "Decorative and Flower Plants 'Matsesta'", which he organized in 2004.

"Civil cases were intentionally turned into the criminal ones, and they need my actual sentence to safely destroy my business and to withdraw from the responsibility a group of persons, involved in the falsification of the criminal case and the raider seizure of the company," the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent was told by Mikhail Batrakov after pronouncement of sentence.

Elena Spasskaya shared the Mikhail Batrakov's opinion. "Actually, there are no investigation and trial in our country, and there are criminal clans, which create arbitrariness," Elena Spasskaya said.

"Defence presents evidence on 60 sheets"

The convicted persons intend to challenge, according to them, obviously unjust verdict of the court. Judge Sergey Martynenko gave 10 days from the date of pronouncement of the verdict to challenge it.

Gennady Karlyshev, the lawyer of Elena Spasskaya, took notice of the fact that the sentence was written on 19 sheets, while the defence presented evidences on 60 sheets. According to the lawyer, the Judge totally ignored the arguments of the defence, simply rewrote the indictment and built his verdict on it.

In accordance with the law, the Judge had to give his explanation to every defence's evidence: why he did not accept one or the other evidence.

"The sentence should contain no less than 100 pages; however, it contains only 19 sheets. The Judge committed a lot of violations of the law. However, the more violations the Judge committed, the better for the lawyers and the defendants. We have more chances to cancel the unjust decision," Gennady Karlyshev said.