The "Queen of bribes" Mirimskaya came up with a scheme for getting out on parole

Next week, on December 24, a hearing will be held in the case of reducing the prison term of businesswoman Olga Mirimskaya, who received the nickname "the queen of bribes." A year ago, she was sentenced to 19 years in prison, but now she can be released early, creating a loophole for corrupt officials in the judicial system. The details of the case were told by Izvestia correspondent Mikhail Emelin.

A year ago, the court sentenced the entrepreneur to 19 years in prison. It was established that she had committed serious corruption crimes — she bribed an investigator and tried to bribe judges. At first, Mirimskaya served time in a penal colony in the Ivanovo region, but a month ago, the penitentiary service suddenly transferred the convict to another place.

"If the prisoner had applied for transfer to a colony closer to home, then, logically, she should have been transferred to a correctional institution in Mozhaisk. Mirimskaya Cottage is only 80 km away. But for some reason, the FSIN officers transferred the convict to a women's colony in the Kaluga region. By a strange coincidence, it is there that the enterprises of the businesswoman's family are located," said Emelin.

Russian Product is one of the backbone companies of the Kaluga region, the main and most profitable asset of the Mirimskys. Last year, the company's revenue amounted to about 4 billion rubles. Among other things, the family owns expensive foreign cars, land plots and houses. At least in the framework of the criminal case, the court arrested almost fifty objects of property, which Mirimskaya, apparently, does not want to say goodbye to. The defense of the convict repeatedly tried to challenge the verdict, but the court of appeal upheld it.

Mirimskaya does not give up even a year after her imprisonment. She has hired experienced lawyers who hope to obtain through the court an installment payment of the fine imposed on the prisoner.

The hearing in Miriska's case is scheduled for December 24. The court will consider the cassation submission of the prosecutor's Office for commutation of the sentence of the convicted person in the Second Court of Cassation on New Year's Eve. The defense believes that the court did not take into account Mirimskaya's maternal feelings when passing sentence. So, she bribed an investigator to punish those who allegedly abducted her daughter. However, this motive does not negate the fact of the crime, and the child appears in only one of the four episodes of the criminal case.

"If we are considering the issue of release from further serving of the sentence or replacement of the unserved part of the sentence with a more lenient punishment, then there are clear criteria. There are no maternal feelings from the word at all. Every sitting woman can say that she has maternal feelings," said Professor Lyudmila Ivar, Doctor of Law.

The Mirimskaya case risks becoming a precedent. Experts suggest that then others convicted of corruption may adopt Mirimskaya's scheme and achieve significant mitigation of their deserved punishment.

"Have you realized? Well yeah I was wrong. She paid bribes four times to bribe judges. Maternal feelings? Well okay. Free, raise your child. We're opening Pandora's box. Any lawyer or caregiver will refer to this case and apply it as an established judicial practice," Ivar stressed.

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Mirimskaya's detention became known in December 2021. She was charged under Part 5 of Article 291 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Bribery"). At a meeting on October 14, 2024, the prosecutor requested that Mirimskaya be sentenced to 20 years in prison with a fine of 500 million rubles.

In December 2024, Mirimskaya appealed her 19-year sentence. On the same day, the Izmailovsky court in Moscow sentenced her to 19 years in a general regime penal colony. The former head of the BKF was also ordered to pay a fine of 400 million rubles. She did not admit her guilt.

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