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Doctor and teacher appear in case of former Sochi mayor
"Kommersant" learned the details of the criminal case against former Sochi Mayor Alexei Kopaigorodsky, who is accused of seizing two plots of land worth 3.7 million rubles. According to investigators, the criminal scheme involving an English teacher and a general practitioner was used to expand the mayor's holdings. They bought the land at a discount and then sold it to Kopaigorodsky's lawyer, who, in turn, sold one of the plots to the mayor's wife. The former civil servant himself categorically denied the theft. His lawyer filed a statement to initiate a criminal case, and the accused's wife wrote a letter to the Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin asking him to "understand" him and "protect his family from the illegal criminal prosecution that I asked for."
Criminal cases under Part 4 of Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on the theft of two land plots with an area of 787 square meters (appropriation or embezzlement, especially on a large scale). Each case in the resort city of Sochi was opened by the Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs on September 17. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in order to expand the boundaries of his house, located on Verkhovskaya Street in the Khostinsky District of Sochi, Mr. Kopaigorodsky, with the help of his subordinates, developed and implemented a criminal plan for 2022-2024. Accordingly, two plots of land adjacent to his house were registered as municipal property. According to the investigation, it was originally planned to hold an auction to sell the land, the winner of which was the mayor's wife, Yanina Kopaigorodskaya. However, there was no guarantee that she would win the auction, so they decided to abandon this idea. As a result, the plot was leased for six years to two Sochi residents: Elena Rassadina, an English teacher at the local gymnasium, and Lyubava Kazakova, a general practitioner at Polyclinic No. 1. Both fell into the privileged category of citizens, which gives them priority access to land for housing construction. In October 2023 and March 2024, they purchased land worth 2.5% of the cadastral value for 46.8 thousand rubles each. And in November 2023 and March 2024, respectively, they sold it to the Kopaigorodsky family's lawyer, Polina Chernyshenko. In January 2024, she sold one of the lots to the mayor's wife, Yanina Kopaigorodskaya.
Accordingly, according to the investigation, the mayor allegedly "used his official position together with unidentified persons" to steal city property entrusted to him, causing damage to the budget in the amount of at least 3.749 million rubles. (The cadastral value of each plot was approximately 1.8 million rubles).
Alexey Kopaigorodsky, who resigned in May 2024 and volunteered for the Northern Military District, was detained in the LPR at the headquarters of the Prince Vladimir Volunteer Corps on September 24 and transferred to Moscow. He was charged the next day, and the Meshchansky Court resigned in May 2024. . sanctioned his arrest. His wife is currently a witness in this case. According to Kommersant, during interrogation, the former mayor did not admit his guilt, stating that it was not within his authority to make decisions on the alienation of city property, including land that the city council is in charge of.
Recently, Mr. Kopeygorodsky's lawyers filed a petition with the head of the investigation team, Lieutenant Colonel of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Justice Olga Koller, asking to close the criminal case. They also appealed the decision to open it in the Meshchansky Court. According to the lawyers of the former mayor, Ivan Mironov and Irina Fedorova, the crime itself is absent from the case. According to Kommersant's complaint, Mr. Kopeygorodsky did not receive "any personal benefit" from the deal with the land of the two properties, and only one was subsequently purchased by his wife at market value. Later, the site, together with the house built on it, was donated to the Mir Detstva charity foundation to organize recreation for children in frontline areas.
“Investigators were disappointed when they came early in the morning to search the ‘shelter’ and not the ‘mayor’s residence’,” said Ivan Mironov.
Lawyer Irina Fedorova draws the court's attention to the fact that the plot was purchased from Ms. Kazakova and Ms. Rassadina at a price several times higher than its cadastral value (4.5 and 5 million rubles). Therefore, the Witnesses themselves did not deny that they wanted to make money on the resale of the land. At the same time, Yanina Kopaigorodskaya, who entered into a marriage contract with her husband, bought one of the plots from the Chernyshenko family's lawyer for 7 million rubles. "As a result of the investigation, not a single legal act was presented prohibiting the civil servant's family from acquiring land under a paid agreement for funds exceeding its cadastral value," the lawyer noted. Kopaigorodsky's lawyers are asking the court to cancel the September 17 ruling on the initiation of criminal proceedings and to close the case.
Mironov's lawyers generally consider these charges absurd. "Everyone understands that if over five years the Sochi leadership was able to bring vague charges against Alexei Kopeigorodsky for 3.7 million rubles, then this only speaks to the former mayor's resolute honesty," he said. The reason for initiating the case was the desire of certain individuals to hinder Mr. Kopeigorodsky's political career. Kopeigorodsky's gubernatorial ambitions became known in the press after his departure for the Northern Military District. The lawyer denied media reports about the former Sochi mayor's involvement in the "cemetery mafia" case or the case of wanted businessman Ruben Tatullian (Robson). "There is no such episode in the indictment," Ivan Mironov emphasized.
In response, Yanina Kopaigorodskaya's lawyer, Elizaveta Metkina, told Kommersant that the defense plans to appeal the decision of the capital's Meshchansky Court to seize her property in the Moscow City Court.
The lawyer noted: "The cost of the arrest is excessive for the damage suffered by the former mayor, in addition, it was acquired before the marriage, and the couple entered into a prenuptial agreement." She added that the hotels confiscated by the court were used free of charge to organize cultural programs for children in Donetsk and Lugansk. At the same time, the Kopaygorodskys are raising six minor children who "could be left homeless and without a livelihood." The lawyer did not rule out that the bank could soon initiate bankruptcy of Ms. Kopaygorodskaya due to the arrest of her assets and accounts, since the hotel business of the wife of the former mayor of Sochi was acquired and developed with credit funds. The lawyer also asked the court to return to the consignee the items seized during the search, which, in her opinion, cannot be of material value. "This is an icon of Nicholas II, a small bust of the holy martyr. The statue of Alexander Nevsky, given to her husband by Yanina Nikolaevna, and the emperor and empress used the call sign "Nevsky" when the former mayor was in front.
Yanina Kopaigorodskaya herself, who currently serves as a senior officer of the headquarters of the combat control brigade "Prince Vladimir", sent an appeal to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Alexander Bastrykin. In the letter, she called the accusations against her husband outrageous and called for an investigation of the criminal case and "protection of his family from illegal prosecution."