My grief in Gukovo: a corrupt official brought thousands of Russians under the article

The Gukovo city Court in the Rostov region is inundated with criminal cases against local residents who received disability certificates from the local bureau of medical and social expertise from 2010 to 2017.The thing is that Boris Kotov, the former head of the bureau who issued them, was himself sued in 2017 for issuing forged disability certificates. The official has already been convicted several times in a special order, and now justice has reached the holders of dubious certificates. All of them were under investigation, some have already been convicted. Izvestia dealt with the scandalous story.

How to become disabled

The Gukovsky City Court of the Rostov region is literally inundated with criminal cases against local residents who were careless enough to cross the threshold of the Bureau of Medical and Social Examinations No. 30 of the FKU UPFR and receive a certificate signed by the former head of the institution Boris Kotov. Izvestia has data on at least 13 criminal cases initiated. The accused and suspects are pensioners and people of pre-retirement age, who, according to investigators, provided certificates from the local bureau of medical and social expertise since 2011.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Eduard Kornienko

In each episode, amounts from 660 thousand to 1.1 million rubles appear as damage to the state. All this money will have to be returned to the budget to those whose guilt will be proven in court. The beginning of this investigative activity was initiated by the criminal case against the already mentioned Boris Kotov.Over 300 facts of bribes and 1,790 cases of official forgery have been proven against the official. Law enforcement agencies were initially alerted by the fact that there were an incredible number of disabled people in a city with a population of just over 60 thousand people. It turned out that for an amount from 40 to 100 thousand rubles, everyone could get the necessary certificate from Kotov.

After his detention in 2017, Kotov entered into a pre-trial cooperation agreement with the prosecutor's office and testified against Andrei Domashenko, head of the Federal State Institution "Main Bureau of Medical and Social Expertise in the Rostov Region," and his deputy Natalia Darymova. Domashenko received 9.5 years in a high—security penal colony in 2019, and Darymov received 6.5 years in prison.

Questions about justice

It is not entirely clear how the investigation into each of the thousands of episodes of official forgery and bribery took place — all that is known is that Kotov's own confessions appear in the case. It is also known from official sources that the cases were heard in a special order, that is, without evaluating the evidence (the former head of the bureau confessed everything and counted on the leniency of the court).

Izvestia spoke with lawyer Gennady Sumarokov, who represented the interests of a local resident in a civil trial in 2022. According to the lawyer, initially the local social fund tried to return accrued pensions without criminal cases.

— Every day the Gukovsky City Court hears up to 20 criminal cases, — says the lawyer. — Yes, there were and are people who tried to attract for giving a bribe to a Cat, they are identified. But after some time, they began to pull up other residents of Gukovo - people who did not give Kotov money, but were disabled. And now, in my opinion, the process of attracting citizens indiscriminately is underway. Whether a person was assigned a group or not, they are trying to bring to justice all those whom the ITU Bureau No. 30 recognized as disabled, according to an alphabetical list.

According to the file of the Gukovsky City Court, 22 hearings related to ITU Bureau No. 30 were scheduled on February 27, four on February 28, and 25 on March 3.

According to a source of Izvestia in the city familiar with the situation, it turned out to be impossible to recover money from the owners of the certificates issued to Kotov due to the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations. But a civil claim for compensation for material damage to the injured party in a criminal case can be satisfied by the court within the framework of the verdict, regardless of this period. The source also claims that this state of affairs suits some security forces — the district often occupies a leading position in the rating of detection of serious crimes.

Izvestia sent a request to the prosecutor's office of the Rostov region in connection with the unprecedented situation of criminal prosecution of residents of the city of Gukovo.

Quiet is recognized and reimbursed

All the defendants in the cases interviewed by the Izvestia correspondent reported that they had admitted their guilt during the investigation and refrained from clarifying the details. The relatives of one of them clarified that their son had given the money, because otherwise his illness would not be recognized as a reason for disability. Some Gukov residents refused to talk to journalists. The Izvestia correspondent was present at the announcement of the verdict of one of the defendants and noticed that the man had taken measures not to be recognized.

— Illegal payments, forming significant damage, fall under art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, — says lawyer, managing partner of AVG Legal Alexey Gavrishev.

Regional edition of RostovGazeta in 2023 told in October 2023 about the fate of local resident Anna Polunina, against whom a criminal case was initiated in 2021 due to a certificate from ITU experts No. 30. But the case collapsed first in the Kirovsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don, and then in the Rostov Regional Court. She even had her disability payments restored, which were interrupted due to the process. However, in December 2022, Polunina was again under investigation under Article 159.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The investigation considers the absence of medical documents in the Gukovo healthcare facilities to be one of the proofs of guilt. Polunina insisted that she had not given bribes to anyone, but had received the document from the commission. Izvestia could not reach Polunina, but found a verdict against her dated May 6, 2024 — the court found her guilty and imposed a three-year suspended sentence.

61 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the court recognizes the admission of guilt, remorse for the deed, voluntary compensation for property damage caused as a result of the crime, the state of health of Polunina AA, the presence of a dependent minor child, his state of health, as well as the presence of a dependent elderly a father who is a disabled person of the 1st group", — it says in the court's decision.

The text is similar in other sentences. An admission of guilt by the defendant and compensation for damages are necessarily indicated as mitigating circumstances. In many cases, the verdict states that the defendants have fully compensated the damage. Almost all the sentences that Izvestia knows about are conditional.

One disclosure for all

It is noteworthy that some sentences include structures and units that are not directly related to the detection of such crimes. For example, a precinct officer wrote a report on the detection of one of the episodes of payment fraud against the defendant Kuchma. Gerasimchik's verdict mentions the report of the head of the investigative department for the Proletarian district of the region (it does not even border the Krasnosulinsky district, where Gukovo is located). Cit should be mentioned that this kind of report defines the unit for which the disclosure of a serious crime will be assigned in the final document reflecting the legal statistics. In other words, whoever wrote the report is the "stick".

— The problem of this situation, in my opinion, should not be looked for in a particular case, investigator or judge, — says lawyer Pavel Korniako. — The root of the evil lies in the "stick" system, permissiveness and irresponsibility, as well as imperfect legislation. The so-called "stick system", the pursuit of improving one's performance, often leads to the violation of not only legal, but also moral and ethical norms.

In his opinion, the investigative authorities and the prosecutor's office are striving to complete, approve and send to court as many criminal cases as possible, and deadlines are important for the court.

— In the pursuit of quantity, as a rule, the quality of both investigative and supervisory activities is lost, which naturally leads to the formalization of the justice system.

Korniako draws attention to the extremely low proportion of terminated criminal cases on rehabilitative grounds and the infrequency of acquittals by the court.

— The reason for this, unfortunately, is not the absence of mistakes by investigators, prosecutors and judges, but the already established practice in which, even if a criminal case is initiated, a guilty verdict must be passed on it in order to justify measures of criminal procedural restrictions.

The lawyer considers another problem to be the personnel gap in the investigative units of various services, as well as the use of illegal methods of interrogation, persuasion and influence.

Who is assigned a disability

Disability insurance pension is awarded to people with disabilities of group I, II or III if they have insurance experience, explains Elena Gladysheva, Managing partner of the Moscow Law Firm RI-Consulting, member of the Supervisory Board of the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization Mosstrategy.

— At the same time, the length of the insurance period does not matter for the appointment of an insurance pension. Anyone who has worked for at least one day under an employment or civil law contract (and insurance contributions have been made to the Social Fund of Russia) or a citizen has voluntarily paid contributions to pension insurance, for example, as a self-employed person, can receive it.

In the absence of insurance experience, a social disability pension is awarded, the lawyer clarifies.

— The cause of disability, the time of its receipt and the continuation of employment also do not matter. It is important that a citizen does not receive an old-age pension, survivor's pension, or other insurance benefits until disability is established. In this case, the Social Fund of Russia appoints only an additional monthly cash payment. This condition is due to the fact that, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, it is possible to make only one of the stipulated insurance payments.

Issue price

The amount of the disability insurance pension is determined taking into account the fixed payment. It depends on the following conditions: the disability group of a citizen; the number of disabled family members who are dependent on him; the availability of work experience in the Far North or equivalent areas.

— In order to obtain the appropriate status, it is necessary to undergo a medical and social examination, Gladysheva continues. — A medical and social examination is carried out only on the basis of a referral, therefore, to conduct it, you must contact a polyclinic (public or private) to undergo a health diagnosis and formalize this referral. At the polyclinic, a citizen needs to decide how the examination will be conducted: in person, at the bureau of medical and social examinations, or in absentia based on existing medical documents. In addition, polyclinics are currently independently transferring referrals and other necessary documents to the appropriate institution for conducting a medical and social examination and notifying the citizen about it.

As a rule, the process of transferring documents takes 1 month, in order to reduce the specified period, you can send the remaining documents through your personal account at Public Services, Gladysheva says.

The lawyer draws attention to the fact that the recognition of a disabled person and the establishment of a disability group are carried out only by federal institutions of medical and social expertise.

— According to the procedure, employees of the Bureau of Medical and Social Examinations transmit information to the Social Fund of Russia and disability status data are entered into the federal state information system "Federal Register of Persons with Disabilities", without requesting a corresponding application from a citizen.

Payments of an old-age insurance pension occur until a citizen is considered disabled and has not reached retirement age or has begun to receive an early old-age insurance pension, Gladysheva said.

Control mechanism

— Preliminary documents obtained in other medical institutions must be checked, — says the chairman of the bar Association "Your Legal Representative" Konstantin Trapaidze. — Now, thanks to electronic document management, it is easy to identify the doctor who issued the documents that do not correspond to reality, as well as to verify the authenticity of the document. Forgery of such documents entails criminal liability, and illegal receipt of payments creates damage, therefore serious negative consequences are possible in case of violations. Therefore, it is necessary to contact only social security departments or medical institutions to which citizens are assigned, and there they explain the procedure for obtaining disability.

Also, disability in most cases needs to be confirmed with a certain frequency, so the control in this area is quite serious, Trapaidze believes.