On May 28, 2025, the HACC found lawyer's assistant Maksym Sadoshenko and lawyers Oleh Butyrin and Volodymyr Kostenko guilty of inciting the bribery of judges of Poltava's district and appellate courts.

According to the investigation, a police officer gave Maksym Sadoshenko's contact details to a citizen against whom a report had been drawn up for an administrative offense under Article 130(1) of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses, suggesting that he approach Sadoshenko to avoid administrative liability. Introducing himself as a lawyer's assistant, Maksym Sadoshenko offered to help the man resolve the case in court.

The essence of the offer was that, for a certain sum of money, a judge of the Kyivskyi District Court of Poltava could be influenced not to find the citizen guilty of the administrative offense. Lawyer Butyrin also joined the scheme. They drew up a legal services contract into which they folded the amount of the unlawful benefit, disguised as a “success fee.”

Sadoshenko and Butyrin persuaded the citizen that he needed to hand over $2,000 ($1,700 for the judge and $300 for their “legal services”). The bribe was documented as a fee for legal assistance. In the end, he handed Butyrin $1,800 (UAH 8,000 had been paid earlier), yet the court still found him guilty of the offense, after which the money was returned to him.

Butyrin and Sadoshenko then formed a new criminal intent — to help the citizen give a bribe to a judge of the Poltava Court of Appeal to have that decision overturned. Lawyer Volodymyr Kostenko, who was on friendly terms with the court's chair and on cordial terms with its judges, was drawn into the conspiracy.

Butyrin filed the appeal and then told the citizen which judge would hear the case. For overturning the ruling, $1,800 was to be handed over. The man paid the bribe in two tranches. The money was passed in stages through Butyrin and Sadoshenko to Kostenko, who was to hand it to the judge. Throughout, they kept insisting that an arrangement was already in place, that the judge was waiting, and that the matter was about to be resolved.

For reasons beyond their control, however, the bribe was never actually passed to the judge. The judge of the Poltava Court of Appeal overturned the first instance ruling and the proceedings against the man were closed.

The court did not establish the exact date on which the first portion of the money was handed over, but the nature of Sadoshenko's conversations with Butyrin indicates that UAH 8,000 had already been transferred as of August 18, 2022.

The defendants' actions were classified under Article 369(3) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

The HACC found the defendants guilty and imposed sentences. Under the court's verdict, Maksym Sadoshenko was sentenced to four years and eight months' imprisonment, with confiscation of funds and part of his property (excluding his sole residence).

Oleh Butyrin received the same sentence of four years and eight months, and Volodymyr Kostenko 4.5 years' imprisonment; both were additionally banned from practicing law for three years, and confiscation of property was applied — part of Butyrin's property, excluding his sole residence, and, in Kostenko's case, the money seized during searches.

Appellate proceedings before the HACC Appeals Chamber are ongoing.