The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to review an unusual delayed sentence of a former government official's daughter convicted of running down two sisters in Irkutsk, killing one and paralyzing the other, Infosud.ru reported Tuesday.
Anna Shavenkova was sentenced in 2010 to 2 1/2 years in prison for striking Yelena and Yulia Pyatkova with her car, but will not have to begin her term until 2024 when her young son reaches the age of 24.
Yelena Pyatkova was killed in the 2009 incident and her sister, Yulia, was left paralyzed.
Shavenkova, the daughter of the Irkutsk region's elections committee chairwoman, was initially not charged, but the case caused a national uproar the next year when security footage surfaced showing her tending to her car rather than giving aid to the critically injured women lying on the street.
The scandal forced prosecutors to open a case against Shavenkova, and in August 2010 she was given a three-year sentence, but suspended for 14 years. Public protests led a regional court to reject the original sentence, but a retrial ended with the same arrangement, except with the sentence cut to 2 1/2 years.
Many believe that Shavenkova received special treatment because she is related to a government official. Although the Criminal Code allows judges to delay sentences for mothers or pregnant women until their child becomes 14 years old, in other cases — most notably that of ex-Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina — the clause has been ignored.
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