Evgeny Kurakin

On 13 September 2013, Kurakin was charged with large-scale fraud and signed an undertaking not to leave the country. He was removed from his position as chairman of the Homeowners’ Association (HOA). Shortly afterwards, on 29 January 2014, the process of liquidating the HOA began. A month later, on 28 February, he was placed in a pre-trial detention centre. The case was transferred to court on 12 December of that year. On 9 July 2015, he was released on bail set at three million roubles. Later that year, on 28 September, the court declared all HOA decisions invalid. On 23 January 2017, the case was returned to the prosecutor, with the court noting that there was no evidence of a selfish motive in Kurakin’s actions.

On 7 June 2019, shortly before the election campaign for the Reutov Council of Deputies—where Kurakin intended to stand as a candidate—he was detained. Three days later, on 10 June, he was placed in custody and his bail of three million roubles was confiscated. The authorities justified this by claiming he had evaded familiarisation with the materials of the criminal case. On 15 October 2019, his detention was replaced with house arrest. Two months later, on 12 December, the Moscow Regional Court transferred jurisdiction of his case to the Zheleznodorozhny City Court, ruling that judges of the Reutov court had a vested interest in the outcome. On 31 August 2020, Kurakin was released from house arrest under a pledge not to abscond.

Finally, on 4 March 2022, he received a two-year suspended sentence.