A federal judge told how he was forced to convict a pensioner of pedophilia without evidence and to hide the forgery of the investigation

Photo: Izolda Drobina / Novaya Gazeta

Federal judge of the Traktorozavodsky District Court of Chelyabinsk Anton Dolgov told “Novaya Gazeta” about how in one of the cases the management forced him to convict a 70-year-old man who was suspected of torturing and committing sexual assault against two sisters, seven and eight years old.

According to Dolgov, the case came to his consideration in 2018. The process lasted for about a year. During interviews at the meetings, it turned out that the girls’ mother was in conflict with the suspect. She lived in his apartment with her friend and daughters, abused alcohol, sold part of the defendant’s property, made a mess, the judge said. At some point, the defendant got tired of this and, leaving for work, he demanded that the women leave his apartment in the evening. After that, a statement about torture and sexual abuse appeared.

The testimonies of the girls themselves were confused, Dolgov said. How exactly their grandfather raped them, they could not explain. “They said that he inserted a penis into the vagina, but the examination showed that nothing like this had happened to them,” the judge told Novaya Gazeta. According to him, the girls’ mother was so drunk during the polls of the investigation that she fell to the floor. Later she admitted that it was not she who wrote her testimony in clear legal language, she was only given a document to sign.

After questioning all the witnesses and carrying out the necessary examinations, the judge invited the prosecutor who had participated in the case for a conversation. Dolgov asked how she saw the situation. The prosecutor admitted that the “torture charges are nonsense” and she does not understand how the Investigative Committee was able to initiate a case and the prosecutor to approve the indictment. Also, according to her, there is no evidence of sexual abuse, “contradiction on contradiction.”

Answering Dolgov’s question about further actions, the prosecutor said that she would insist on a guilty verdict, despite the fact that there was no corpus delicti and evidence.

“I recalled that we have Article 246 (participation of the prosecutor) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which imposes on the prosecutor the obligation to drop charges in such cases. The prosecutor replied: “Well, you understand that this is impossible,” Dolgov says.

Then the judge decided to study the case materials more closely. Very quickly, Dolgov, who had previously worked as an investigator for especially important cases in the Yekaterinburg prosecutor’s office, found a document with signs of a forgery of the signature of the head of the district department of the Investigative Committee. The judge found out that the indictment was originally signed by the acting chief, who had no right to do so. When the investigation noticed this, the signature had to be forged in the decision on the joining of cases.

The investigation submitted this document to the court with materials for arrest once and three times when extending the term of detention. Dolgov actually found these copies, but it turned out that they not only differ from the document that was in the judge’s case file, but also from each other, the signatures were executed in different ways.

“Here I already had a puzzle, it became clear that the decision on joining the cases was not passed, but it was discovered before the case was sent to the court. When they noticed the chief was not there, and he could not sign the interim postdate – the signature had to be forged, ”the judge said.

Having found out everything, Dolgov invited the prosecutor and the head of the investigation, whom he offered a choice – either they take the case from the court, and the person is released, or the judge will raise the issue of examining the signature, and then the whole situation with the signatures will become known not only to a close circle of people. The prosecution refused to withdraw the case, and the judge requested an examination.

At this time, Dolgov’s management became interested in the case. The chairman of the court, Yuri Syrov (now retired), said that if the examination confirms the forgery and Dolgov returns the case to the prosecutor, canceling the arrest of the suspect, the leadership “will not understand this.”

According to Dolgov, Syrov said that “in the regional court,” Vyacheslav “Malashkovets himself (at that time – the acting chairman, now – the chairman of the regional court of the Chelyabinsk region) will not understand you. Regardless of the results of the examination, you must pass a verdict on the case. “

The examination confirmed that the signature in the document was not made by the chief himself, but by another person with imitation of the original, not a single element of coincidence was found.

That is, in fact, due to the lack of the necessary signature, the case did not exist, and Dolgov, according to him, revealed 10 crimes of forgery, negligence, falsification of evidence. The judge says that he was inclined to pass an acquittal, but after clarifying all the circumstances, he could not do this, because in this way all violations would “legalize”. The only thing the judge could do was to return the non-existent case to the prosecutor’s office.

After the examination, Malashkovets contacted the judge, who suggested that he still make an acquittal, but Dolgov refused. In fact, Malashkovets demanded to conceal the malfeasance committed by the employees of the Investigative Committee, and thus Dolgov himself had to break the law.

After the refusal, Dolgov started having problems. He was given additional New Year’s shifts, despite the operation he had just undergone. In addition, Syrov showed the judge the ruling issued by the judge of the Chelyabinsk Regional Court, Yevgeny Roslyakov. The latter canceled the return of the case to the prosecutor’s office. He was transferred to another judge, who sentenced the 70-year-old defendant to 15 years in prison.

All further decisions of Dolgov in other cases were challenged or canceled, disciplinary proceedings were instituted against him. In addition, Syrov said that Dolgov should return fewer cases to the prosecutor’s office for further investigation, because “the cops are complaining.” According to Dolgov, Syrov said that the “cops are demanding” from him to transfer the intractable judge to civil cases.

It’s very difficult to fire Dolgov. According to him, a judge can be deprived of his powers for a disciplinary offense, but for this there must be a final sentence.

Neither Syrov nor Malashkovets responded to Novaya Gazeta’s inquiries.