Case description
On October 14, 2022, the HACC convicted Mykhailo Dziudz, former head of the Lviv Regional Penitentiary Service and a member of the Lviv Regional Council, of systematically demanding and receiving bribes from his subordinates for not interfering with their work.
He was sentenced to 5 years with confiscation of property.
Mykhailo Dziudz is a former member of the Lviv Regional Council and former head of the Western Interregional Department for the Enforcement of Criminal Sentences and Probation. In 2019, he began to hint to his subordinates, the heads of correctional institutions, that they needed to transfer 10–20% of the state's expenditures on penal colonies to him every month in order to save their positions.
In December 2019, he demanded that the head of the Tsumanska penal colony pay USD 500 a month to prevent inspections in the institution. The director of the colony could not refuse it because he had already learned from a colleague from the Manevytska penal colony about the consequences of refusing to pay bribes—constant inspections and an internal investigation.
Further, Dziudz imposed the obligation to collect a “toll” from the penal institutions of the Volyn region on the head of the Tsumanska penal colony. In addition to his contribution, he received USD 300 a month from the Lutsk colony and fuel vouchers from the Kovel colony. The heads of Tsumanska and Manevytska penal colonies complained to the NABU about Dziudz.
The money was transferred at the so-called “extortion councils” every month on the basis of one of the colonies and then in a restaurant. Dziudz was detained in March 2020, when he received the last tranche of USD 1,000 from one of his subordinates on the last day before his retirement.
Dziudz was charged with Article 368, part 3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. He was sentenced to 6 years with confiscation of all his property and deprivation of the right to hold certain positions for 3 years.
Subsequently, the appellate instance reduced the main sentence to 5 years in prison, removing the qualifying feature of bribe extortion from the sentence. The cassation instance confirmed the amended verdict.
