The military court of the 235th garrison sentenced an officer of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces to a fine of 400,000 rubles. for attempting to obtain a bribe in the form of a Bosch washing machine. On this subject writing “Kommersant”.
On the platform was the head of the department of the main organization and mobilization department of the General Staff, Colonel Ivan Mertvishchev.
Initially, the criminal case was opened under Part 5 of Art. 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (acceptance of a bribe associated with extortion). According to the investigation, a week before the start of the fall draft in 2022, Mertvishchev contacted military commissar Ramenok. The colonel told the military commissar that things were not going well with the recruiting of conscripts in his area, and even though everything looked fine from the documents, he would find something to complain about and report “to the ‘stage “.
To prevent this from happening, Mertvishchev offered the military commissar to buy him a washing machine worth at least 70,000 rubles. The Colonel of the General Staff chose the Bosch WHA122W1BL model, and the military commissar bought it in the most expensive configuration for 72 thousand 130 rubles.
At the same time, employees of the military registration and enlistment office reported the extortion to the military counterintelligence department. As a result, Mertvishchev was detained by FSB agents near his house on Tvardovsky Street in Moscow, where a washing machine was delivered to him.
Mertvishchev pleaded guilty. The officer said he urgently needed a washing machine after the apartment was renovated.
The prosecution asked the court to sentence Mertvishchev to two years in a penal colony. The accused himself and his defense asked to be limited to sentences unrelated to the deprivation of liberty. They insisted that the request for a washing machine was only an attempt at fraud and not a bribe. According to Mertvishchev, Ramensky was not included in the plans for inspecting military commissariats, and he decided to play on this.
Judge Artem Karpov, who presided over the trial, decided that the actions of the defendant, who did not even have time to use the washing machine, were precisely an attempt to defraud using his official position. The charge was reclassified to Part 3 of Art. 30 and part 3 of art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Mertvishchev was fined and banned from holding positions in state bodies for two years. The court took into account the mitigating circumstances: the officer pleaded guilty, he had already fought in Chechnya and had several orders. In addition, he wrote a report with a request to send him to the military operation zone in Ukraine.
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