On October 30 the Kherson City Court lifted the seizure previously imposed on the property of the former director of Kherson LLC “Budpostach-STSV” Oleksandr Novokhatskyi, who is suspected of abuse of influence.
This is stated in the court ruling, which is published on the website of the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
According to the investigation, in November 2024 the deputy director of “Khersonteploenergo” and Oleksandr Novokhatskyi offered the director of a private company to enter into a contract for electrical installation works at a “Khersonteploenergo” facility in the amount of UAH 2,544,900. The contractor was to give them a kickback of 22.5%.
The company director turned to law enforcement and told about this scheme. After that he was given “marked” UAH 342,000, which he was supposed to give to Novokhatskyi during a meeting.
On January 14 this year Oleksandr Novokhatskyi was detained in Kherson, but was released on bail of UAH 908,400. Later it became known that he had passes that were allegedly issued by the Kherson Regional Military Administration (OVA), and during searches at Novokhatskyi’s home and in the office of “Budpostach-STSV” law enforcement officers found seals of other companies that received multi-million contracts in the Kherson region, as well as the same UAH 342,000 that the company director gave him.
In April the court seized the property of Oleksandr Novokhatskyi, in particular, the seizure concerned ten land plots with a total area of 35.5368 ha, a 2011 Toyota Sequoia 4664 vehicle, a share in LLC “Budpostach-STSV” and a share in LLC “Clinic of Innovative Medicine”.
On October 30 the court granted Novokhatskyi’s defense request and fully lifted the seizure of this property.
As stated in the ruling, this happened because the seizure was initially imposed for possible confiscation, since Novokhatskyi was first accused of extortion (part 3 of Art. 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), but later investigators changed the charge to the less serious – abuse of influence (part 2 of Art. 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), where confiscation of property as a punishment is not provided for, and there are no victims. Therefore, the court found that the need for the seizure had disappeared.
In addition, the court considered the issue of bail in the amount of UAH 908,400. Since the new charge is classified as a non-serious crime, the court decided that such a high amount was unreasonable and reduced it to UAH 60,560. The court ordered the previously paid difference to be returned to those who paid it.
Note that in July this year Kherson police opened a criminal proceeding regarding possible abuses during the construction of three anti-radiation shelters, better known as “underground schools”. One of these schools was supposed to be built by LLC “Budpostach-STSV” of Novokhatskyi. In addition, just in 2024 this company received construction contracts in Kherson for over UAH 383 million, and after that it disappeared, and shortly thereafter the former head of the Kherson MVA, Roman Mrochko, who was the main proponent of building those very “underground schools”.