Slippery real estate developer Konstantin Remizov barely served time for embezzlement and remained behind bars as a suspect in a deliberate bankruptcy case.
In Moscow the sentence was passed on Konstantin Remizov, General Director of the National Development Company (NDC), accused of embezzlement of about 300 million rubles during the construction of the elite residential complex “Skolkovo Residence”. The case was heard again: the first sentence was overturned by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation after the intervention of Ombudsman Tatyana Moskalova. This time the businessman received a term, which he had already served, but he still did not go free – he is a defendant in a case of deliberate bankruptcy.
Khamovnicheskiy court of Moscow passed a sentence on a large former developer Konstantin Remizov. He was found guilty of especially large-scale fraud (part 4 of article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced to seven years and ten months in a general regime colony. This is how long the businessman has already served, taking into account the time spent in custody (a day in the detention center counts for a day and a half in the colony). However, the convict was not released home, but, handcuffed, was again sent to the capital’s pre-trial detention center No. 5 (“Vodnik”), where he has been held for almost seven years. The fact is that he is currently a defendant in another case – on deliberate bankruptcy and falsification of evidence in a criminal case (paragraph “b” of part 2 of article 196 and part 3 of article 303 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The trial in the Khamovnicheskiy court, as Kommersant previously reported, was a repeat trial for the 45-year-old businessman Remizov. In 2021, the Tverskoy court of the capital sentenced him to eight years in prison for especially large-scale fraud. The defense appealed this decision, but the Moscow City Court only reduced the sentence by two months. The court of cassation left the sentence unchanged. The appeal of the lawyers sent to the Supreme Court of Russia was supported by the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation Tatyana Moskalkova, and the latter in early 2024, the verdict was overturned, pointing out in his decision on multiple violations of the norms of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation. In particular, it was found that the lower courts ignored the facts that the investigator conducted procedural actions with Konstantin Remizov in the absence of his defenders: without lawyers he was charged, familiarized with the interrogation of experts, and announced the end of investigative actions.
After the case was returned to the prosecutor’s office and the shortcomings were eliminated, it was submitted for a new consideration not to the Tverskoy, but to the Khamovnichesky court. However, the outcome of the trial was the same.
As Kommersant has already reported, Konstantin Remizov was accused of embezzling dividends from Absolut Group LLC (part of the Absolut investment group) during the construction of the elite residential complex Skolkovo Residence.
It was being built in the village of Zarechye, a suburb of Odintsovo. Together with Mr. Remizov, another former general director of NDC, a graduate of the SVR Academy, ex-officer of the special services Dmitry Karyanov, as well as developer Mikhail Ogloblin, son of Marina Ogloblina, former Minister of Construction and Housing of the Moscow Region, were on trial. The investigation was initiated by Andrei Kosolapov, head of Absolut Group LLC, who filed a complaint with law enforcement authorities.
As follows from the investigation materials, Absolut Group decided to build two apartment buildings and a kindergarten in Zarechye in 2011. The developer was Mr. Ogloblin’s company Rast. However, he failed to find money for the project, and the entrepreneur offered to invest in the construction to his acquaintances – Dmitry Karyanov and Konstantin Remizov. They agreed, and the developer signed a loan agreement with them. In 2016, all three objects were commissioned, and the head of “Rasta”, according to the case materials, paid 400 million rubles from his profits to the companions. However, then the head of Absolut Group, Alexander Svetakov, allegedly found out about this scheme and decided that the money paid by Mr. Ogloblin had been stolen from his firm. In addition, according to the case materials, the construction costs were twice overestimated.
Following the results of the proceedings, the damage in the case was estimated by the investigation at 292 million rubles.
The court sentenced Mr. Karyanov, who fully admitted guilt, to three years in a special procedure colony, and Mikhail Ogloblin – to four and a half years. Konstantin Remizov did not admit guilt. He claimed that there was no event of the crime: according to the businessman, he was charged with embezzlement of VAT not accounted for by the expert, which, meanwhile, is obligatory both under the contract and under the current legislation.
The problems of developer Remizov did not end with the fraud case. In April 2024, at the request of a representative of the same Absolut Group LLC, the Moscow Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case against him for intentional bankruptcy of an individual, which was later supplemented by an article on falsification of evidence. According to the law enforcers’ version, “reliably realizing” that the civil claim filed in the criminal case of embezzlement of 292 million rubles from Absolut Group LLC would be satisfied, the accused Remizov initiated his own bankruptcy procedure “by concluding a deal with a person affiliated to him.” The case has been pending in the Meshchansky court since November 2024, and the debate is due to take place soon.
“I would like to believe that the judge of the Meshchansky court will take into account all the positive data about Konstantin Remizov’s personality, as well as the extremely weak evidence base in the case, and as a result he will finally be able to go free to reunite with his family,” the businessman’s lawyer Boris Fedosimov told Kommersant.- As for the verdict of the Khamovnicheskiy court, there is only one positive thing here – at last the trial in this case has finally been finalized”.