There is no excuse: the Muscovite could not prove that he had served four years for another

Muscovite Alexei Turchin failed to get an acquittal in the fraud case, although he claims that he served four years in a penal colony instead of the real criminal. Earlier, the Court of Cassation overturned the first verdict, and the Moscow City Court sent Turchin's case for a new trial. But on July 24, Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky Court issued a verdict repeating the verdict of almost five years ago — four years in a penal colony. Turchin remained at large, as he had already served this term. Izvestia described this case in detail in its investigation, where the main argument of the prosecution was a portrait examination made on the basis of very poor quality video recordings and concluded that "the similarity of the suspect to the criminal cannot be excluded." Why the Muscovite failed to get a retrial, although even the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office sided with him at the time, is described in the Izvestia article.

Repetition of the verdict

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow has ruled on a particularly large-scale fraud case against 51-year-old former policeman Alexei Turchin. Judge Olga Bagrova actually repeated the sentence that had previously been imposed on the man — four years in prison. Alexey will remain free, as he has already served this term.

Turchin's lawyers, with the support of the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office, had previously achieved the cancellation of the first verdict and the referral of the case for a new trial. They hoped for an acquittal, but the court decided otherwise. Although, according to Turchin himself, he served four years in prison for a crime committed by another person.

Izvestia previously wrote in detail about this case. At the end of 2020, an audacious deception was committed in Moscow: a fraudster named Gleb Radulov, during a purchase and sale of a land plot and a house, lured 8 million rubles in cash from one of the parties to the transaction and disappeared.

Alexey Turchin, a former policeman who looks similar to the criminal and is familiar with one of the participants in the deal, was detained in a criminal case. Despite contradictions in the testimony of witnesses and the alleged alibi of the accused (he claimed that he was in another area of the city that day), the court in 2021 sentenced Turchin to four years in a penal colony. The main argument of the prosecution was a portrait examination made on the basis of very poor quality video recordings and concluded that "the similarity of the suspect to the criminal cannot be excluded." The stolen money was never found.

In the fall of 2022, another crime was committed according to an identical scheme, which involved a man extremely similar to Gleb Radulov. His real name turned out to be Ruslan Radulov. He was detained and sentenced to a real prison term.

Turchin filed an appeal against his sentence, but lost it. But then the position of Turchin's defense was supported by the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office — in the cassation instance, she demanded that the case be returned for a second investigation to study Alexey's alibi. As a result, the Court of Cassation satisfied the complaint of the defense and the prosecutor's office, overturned the verdict, and returned the case to the Moscow City Court. The Moscow City Court, in turn, returned the case to the first instance, the Zamoskvoretsky Court. He sent the materials for revision to the investigation. Turchin had already been released by that time.

How did the second process go?

The new trial was accompanied by constant emotional sparring between Turchin's lawyer, Rafail Mamiev, and judge Olga Bagrova. The judge promised the lawyer to file a complaint against him to the bar association after the trial, and the lawyer replied to the judicial corps. Ruslan Radulov was never questioned as part of the case review — the court requested a video conference call with the colony in which he is sitting, but Radulov refused to participate, and the FSIN officers did not forcibly bring him in.

The court denied the defense most of the petitions filed to attach evidence to the case file that could indicate the existence of an alibi and Turchin's innocence. The position of the accused and his defense at the trial was that the only thing he had in common with Gleb Radulov was a common acquaintance with the participant in the transaction, Andrei Zhuravlev. That day, according to Turchin, he called Zhuravlev on another matter, while he was doing personal business on the other side of Moscow.

Turchin insisted that they looked very similar to Gleb Radulov, especially since the court was presented with a video from an ATM where Alexey entered on the day when the transaction was carried out, and which shows that he is noticeably larger than Radulov, unshaven and with a more magnificent haircut.

The opinions of the witnesses who were present at the ill—fated deal in 2020 were divided - half recognized Gleb Radulov as Turchin, the other half said that it was not him.

The prosecutor's office's position suddenly changed: if the city prosecutor's office sided with Turchin at the time and supported the review of the case, then during the current trial, the district prosecutor's office asked at the debate stage to return the case to the investigation, but not to check the alibi, but to make the article heavier for Turchin and add a point about fraud committed by a "group of persons". The judge refused to do this to the prosecutor.

Turchyn arrived at the verdict on July 24 with a huge bag of belongings, because he was afraid that the court would support the prosecutor's request and he would have to go back to prison. However, he was late, and the judge read out the decision without him.

As a result, the accused told Izvestia that, although he was glad that he had not been imprisoned again, he nevertheless considered his sentence unfair and planned to fight further on appeal and, if necessary, in cassation. As Turchin himself said during his last speech, during his time in prison and litigation, he lost his father and mother, and also missed the moment of his son's growing up. He has never admitted his guilt and insists that Ruslan Radulov should sit in the dock instead.