A Moscow court Wednesday acquitted lawyer Inna Yermoshkina of criminal charges that she has called revenge for her campaign against nepotism and corruption in the awarding of lucrative notary public licenses.
The Perovsky District Court acquitted Yermoshkina of all charges of fraud involving purported illegal privatizations of apartments between 1999 and 2004, Yermoshkina told Interfax.
Yermoshkina, who was passed over in several tenders for notary permits, sued the commission that organizes the tenders three times in 2008, accusing it of illegally helping the relatives of senior officials obtain Moscow permits while denying them to lawyers like herself.
After filing the complaints, Yermoshkina was accused of fraud and spent two months in detention.
Since 2005, about 70 Moscow notaries have lost their jobs because of Yermoshkina’s lawsuits, including Alexander Pronin, son of former Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin, and Alexei Kuzovkov, son-in-law of Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu.
In one complaint, Yermoshkina accused the commission of awarding a notary permit in 2005 to Irina Buksman, wife of First Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Buksman. The Investigative Committee tried to open a criminal case against Alexander Buksman in June 2008 on suspicion of illegally assisting his wife, but Buksman’s boss, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika, issued an order forbidding the investigation.
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