The investigation filed a petition with the court to extend the restaurateur’s previous restraint measure. The businessman, who is also a lawyer from the Pskov Bar Association, has been detained for exactly one year, since January 2022.
He is charged with mediating the transfer of bribes to police officers totaling 1.263 million rubles. The investigation revealed information about one of the episodes in the case. In 2021, the manager of a cafe in the Admiralteisky district of St. Petersburg told the restaurateur that police seized hookahs and tobacco products from the establishment during the inspection. He offered to solve the problem – to transfer 50 thousand rubles to law enforcement officers through him for the return of the confiscated. The woman agreed, the money was transferred. Other episodes of mediation in the transfer of bribes also appear in the case.
Also, the businessman is accused of violating sanitary and epidemiological regulations, which created the threat of a mass disease of people. At the height of the pandemic, when restrictions were imposed on catering work, the defendant informally led the protest of several restaurant and bar owners against serving customers using QR codes.
It should be noted that the defendant has entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement and the investigative proceedings in his case have already concluded. The court considered that in the materials presented to it there is no data on the need to leave the defendant with the most severe measure of restraint – detention.
He will serve house arrest until April 19, 2023 in a house in the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region.
