The person involved in the murder of a Muscovite woman was asked for 12 years in a penal colony because of the apartments.

The state prosecution has asked to sentence Maria Sokolova, a defendant in the case of the murder of businesswoman Svetlana Khalyapova and fraud with her real estate in Moscow, to 12 years in a penal colony. This was reported on June 2 by a correspondent of Izvestia from the courtroom.

"I ask you to impose a sentence of 12 years in prison with a fine of 1.8 million rubles," the prosecutor said.

The victim's representative agreed with the requested punishment. At the same time, the accused asked for a suspended sentence.

Khalyapova disappeared in 2016. For a long time, her friends were unaware of her disappearance, as messages continued to arrive from her phone. The woman was put on the federal wanted list only in 2022, her body has not yet been found.

According to investigators, the businesswoman, who owned three apartments in Moscow, became a victim of "black realtors." Sokolova's husband rented one of Halyapova's apartments and helped her with the renovation of other facilities. The man and his wife had planned an attack on the businesswoman in advance: Sokolov invited the woman to "discuss the deal," and then strangled and dismembered her, gaining access to her phone and banking applications.

After the massacre, the couple withdrew money from Halapova's accounts and created the appearance that she was alive and abroad. Soon they decided to sell the property — during the transactions, a disguised Maria with a fake passport in the name of Halapova tried to impersonate the murdered woman. One of the deals was disrupted by a notary who suspected forgery and called the police.

The jury found Sokolova guilty of real estate fraud, but the panel found her involvement in the murder unproven. Vladislav Kuznetsov, for whom one of the apartments was registered, was acquitted by the jury and released from custody in the courtroom.

Criminal intent: a wife helped her husband in a murder for the sake of five apartments in Moscow

A witness in the case of "black realtors" became the accused, and her daughter told how her parents hid the corpse in the couch.

Earlier, a jury found Sokolova guilty of apartment fraud, but the panel found her involvement in the murder unproven. The jury concluded that the woman helped her husband hide the traces of the crime and take over real estate. Vyacheslav Sokolov himself is the main person involved in the case and is wanted. In court, Maria claimed that the man was dead, and blamed her lover for his death.