Roman Koval voted out of his pocket
Vyborgsky District Court of St. Petersburg announced the verdict against the ex-deputy of the Legislative Assembly Roman Koval. According to a Fontanka correspondent on August 11, the court found him guilty of taking a bribe of almost 11 million rubles.
As the judge said Anna Pronina Koval used his status for activities not related to deputy, having criminal intent, suggested to the businessman Mikhail Likholetov engaged in the wholesale supply of medical equipment, to allocate funds from the budget for subsidies to medical institutions for a bribe.
He also, as the judge emphasized, used his authority and influenced the deputies Konstantin Chebykin and Boris Ivchenkowhich, at his request, provided subsidies to the Pokrovskaya Hospital and the War Veterans Hospital.
After the allocation of subsidies, Likholetov’s companies won tenders for the supply of equipment to these institutions.
In the interests of Roman Koval, the money went to polyclinic No. 91, a hospital for war veterans, maternity hospitals No. 10, No. 17 and No. 18, as well as Pokrovskaya hospital. With the hospital and maternity hospital No. 18, contracts were concluded for the supply of companies owned by Mikhail Likholetov, namely, Tekhmedical Group LLC and Wholesale Medical Company LLC. The company of another entrepreneur, Anton Sidorov, Rubin LLC, was also involved. She replaced the elevator equipment in maternity hospital No. 10.
For lobbying the interests of Roman Koval, through his assistant Andrey Grishin, according to the materials of the case, he received from Mikhail Likholetov 20% of the amount of contracts concluded. In total, according to investigators, the deputy received 11 million rubles from the entrepreneur. Earlier it was said about 16.9 million rubles, but the episode with the receipt of a bribe in the form of an Audi Q7 worth 6.2 million rubles. was excluded from the sentence. With Anton Sidorov, the former deputy managed to agree on only 10% and received from him, according to the investigation, 800 thousand rubles.
As a result, the court sentenced Koval to imprisonment for 9 years in a strict regime colony with a fine of 35,000,000 rubles and deprivation of the right to hold public office for a period of 8 years.
The prosecution asked the court to send the deputy for 14 years to a penal colony, fined 88 million rubles, banned from holding public office for 7 years, and confiscated in favor of the state 2.9 million rubles, 3,000 euros, 8,000 US dollars, an apartment, a Vacheron Constantin watch worth 2.9 million rubles and the Audi Q6.
“I consider it my duty to God and people to achieve my justification, continue social and political activities and direct it to the protection of rights and freedoms in Russia. Examples: Gandhi, Mandela, Pashinyan. We are made of iron,” Koval was quoted by the Rotunda telegram channel “. According to the defendant, during the investigation he personally became convinced of the cruelty and injustice of Russian law enforcement practice.
As Fontanka wrote, deputy Roman Koval detained in the summer of 2020 at the same time as his assistant Andrey Grishin. Mikhail Likholetov, the owner of the Techmedical Group company, testified against them.
Koval denied his guilt, as did his detained assistant Andrei Grishin. Six months later, both unexpectedly gave confessions. Koval, however, insisted that his actions should be qualified not under the article on a bribe, but under the article “fraud” – after all, from a legal point of view, the deputy has no opportunity to influence the conclusion of state contracts, this is done by the administrations of medical institutions.
Koval’s assistant not only testified against the former boss (and later it turned out that he was also a close friend of the family), but also told investigators about another episode: about how Koval lobbied for a contract to replace elevators in a maternity hospital for businessman Anton Sidorov. A criminal case was also initiated against the businessman.
Grishin himself was able to end up under house arrest, and then, after the completion of the trial, he was released: in March of this year, he imposed a fine of 1.5 million rubles and were banned from working in the public service for three years.
On July 12, Roman Koval stated at the court session that his forced to confess: according to him, lawyer Igor Rezonov convinced him that in this case he would be released from the pre-trial detention center under house arrest. Refusing to confess, the deputy stated that he received money from Likholetov, but only because loaned them to him – the entrepreneur could not pay off subcontractors in any way, and the politician helped him. Koval did not recognize the bribe.
