Case description
On July 22, 2020, the HACC found the retired judge of the Malynovskyi District Court of Odesa guilty of extorting and receiving a bribe for the “correct” decision in the case related to the Odesa Radial Drill Plant. Tselukh was sentenced to 7 years in prison, but the appeal reduced the sentence to 5 years in prison.
In summer 2017, Tselukh, as a judge, received a lawsuit requesting to cancel the decision of the Odesa plant to allocate an apartment to another person. For a year and a half, there was no decision on the case, and in spring 2019, Tselukh demanded that the defendant's representative transfer USD 2,500 in bribes; for this money, the judge had to speed up the consideration of the case and facilitate the adoption of a positive decision in favor of the defendant.
The representative of the defendant informed the prosecutor's office about the crime of Tselukh, and subsequently, under the supervision of law enforcement officers, the bribe was handed over to the Odesa ex-judge right in his office. This amount was subsequently seized during the NABU search.
The crime was qualified under Art. 368, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Tselukh was sent to prison for 7 years, with confiscation of all property and deprivation of the right to hold the post of judge and any positions in law enforcement agencies for 3 years.
In August 2020, his lawyers filed a number of appeals, in which they noted that Tselukh had been provoked to commit a crime, and the evidence in the case was inadmissible. Therefore, the appeals requested the HACC Appeals Chamber to overturn the verdict and close the criminal proceedings against the judge. The Appeals Chamber decided to mitigate the punishment of Tselukh to 5 years in prison, but otherwise the verdict did not change.
Subsequently, the lawyers filed cassation appeals, but the Supreme Court did not change the punishment of Tselukh.
