A Moscow court has found businessman Viktor Baturin guilty of large scale fraud.
The prosecution is now requesting an eight-year jail sentence and a fine of 300,000 rubles ($9,200). A representative of prosecutor Yelena Rossokhina told Interfax that in September 2011 Baturin attempted to redeem a forged promissory note worth 5.6 billion rubles, allegedly from the offices of the Inteco construction company.
Baturin founded Inteko in 1991 with his sister Yelena Baturina, the high-profile billionaire and wife of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. Inteko insisted through its press service that they never issued the promissory note Baturin attempted to cash in. They said a court ruled in 2007 that all settlements made by Inteko with Baturin were done legally.
This was reaffirmed in 2011 when Moscow’s Presnensky Court sentenced Baturin to three years of probation and issued him a 300,000 ruble fine, having found him guilty of the fraudulent sale of city center property, the company said.
In November 2011, a tax evasion case was also brought against Baturin. Prosecutors allege that Baturin never declared nearly 178.4 million rubles that he derived from the sale of bank promissory notes, which deprived revenue services of 23.2 million rubles.
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