Within a week, two corrupt judges were ruled guilty by the High Anti-Corruption Court, and one sentence was upheld by the Appeals Chamber of the HACC.
On February 19, the High Anti-Corruption Court’s judicial panel headed by Lesia Fedorak ruled Volodymyr Ponomarenko, judge of the Court of Appeal, guilty of abuse of power. The court convicted him to two years in prison.
According to the NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors, in 2018, the judge received a 30 thousand bribe for influencing another judge. Ponomarenko was supposed to illegally influence the judge of the Sosnovskyi district court of Cherkasy to help the accused avoid administrative liability for driving under the influence.
This was the second such sentence for a judge this week. Earlier, the HACC sentenced the corrupt judge Ivan Tulyk to 8 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property and deprivation of the right to hold a position of judge for three years. Investigators proved that he was involved in 2 episodes of receiving a bribe: the first episode took place in September 2018 ($400) and the second one – in March 2019 (UAH 10 thousand).
According to investigators, for the first bribe, the judge also agreed to contribute to a favorable decision on the “driver’s” case, which was being considered by the judge of Rakhivskyi District Court. For the second one— decide a civil case on debt collection in favor of the same participant.
Currently, the accused have 30 days to file the appeal.
On February 19, judges of the HACC Chamber of Appeals, Viktor Pankulych, Sergii Bodnar, and Ihor Panaid, upheld the sentence for the former fugitive judge of the Commercial Court of Odesa oblast Pavlo Medentsev. They sentenced him to 9 years of imprisonment with confiscation of property, special confiscation of UAH 250 thousand, and a ban on certain positions for three years. This is for extortion and receiving a UAH 570 thousand bribe.
Thus, within a week, three judges were ruled guilty of bribery by the High Anti-Corruption Court.
