The high-profile trial against a brutally violent Sverdlovsk region gang ended Thursday with multiple murder convictions and a slew of lengthy prison sentences, the Interfax news agency reported.
Vasily Fedorovich, the 29-year-old lawyer and prominent blogger who moonlit as the feared Fedorovich Gang's leader, was sentenced to 22 years in prison. Eight other gang members were sentenced to prison terms varying from six years to life behind bars.
Though the 14 murders were similarly grisly, they were carried out for an array of different reasons, Russian media reported.
The gang's motives were at times mercenary, at times rooted in nationalistic hatred and at times carried out for sadistic pleasure, news site Vzglyad reported Thursday.
A U.S. national was among the gang's victims, according to Vzglyad. Fedorovich reportedly invited American man Georgy Kara Yakubyan to Yekaterinburg to discuss a business deal, before taking him to a forest outside the city, where he and other gang members tortured and killed him.
The gang was active between 2006 and 2012, and originally consisted of 11 members. Aside from the nine who have been convicted, one is dead and one remains on the lam.
Despite their reported flurry of motives, every killing was planned in meticulous detail, media reports said. Among his other odd jobs, lawyer Fedorovich was responsible for taking care of covering the criminals' tracks.
The gang possessed a plethora of different weapons and several vehicles. One of the members was a police officer at the time and helped his associates buy a uniform and other police equipment to be used for a disguise.
