Kherson businessman Oleksandr Novokhatsky, who was detained for receiving more than half a million hryvnias in illicit benefits, was found guilty of abuse of influence.
MOST wrote about this on June 6 and today the court verdict confirmed it.
Novokhatsky promised, in exchange for “kickback”, to secure for a private company a contract from the municipal enterprise “Khersonteploenergo”.
As became known from the case materials, the corruption scheme unfolded at the end of 2024 — at the beginning of 2025.
On November 26, 2024 Oleksandr Novokhatsky was in the office of LLC “Budpostach-STSВ” on the premises of the Kherson market “Servis opt”. There he met with a company representative and offered to “resolve the issue” with the city leadership.
Novokhatsky promised for money to influence the director of the municipal enterprise “Khersonteploenergo” and guaranteed the conclusion of a contract with LLC “Voltenergotrans” for repair works, as well as unobstructed and speedy signing of certificates of completed construction works and the transfer of budget funds.
The entrepreneur valued his “services” at 22.5% of the total amount of the future contract. The money was to be transferred in parts, immediately after funds from the municipal enterprise arrived in the company’s accounts.
The transfer of the illicit benefit took place in two stages in the same office premises at the market “Servis OPT”.
On January 7, 2025 Novokhatsky received the first tranche in the amount of 230 thousand hryvnias. He immediately spent these funds for his own needs, in particular using them to pay wages to employees of his company.
On January 9, 2025, during the transfer of the second, larger part of the bribe in the amount of 342 thousand hryvnias, the suspect was detained by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine. The second part of the funds was seized by law enforcement during a search. The total documented amount of the illicit benefit amounted to 572 thousand hryvnias.
During large-scale searches in Mykolaiv and Kherson, law enforcement seized from Novokhatsky equipment, the cars “Toyota Sequoia” and “Volkswagen Touareg”, documentation, working projects concerning the boiler house on Ostrivske Highway, as well as numerous passes from the Kherson Regional Military Administration.
At the court hearing Oleksandr Novokhatsky fully admitted his guilt, sincerely repented and confirmed all the circumstances of the crime. Considering that the defendant did not dispute the factual data, the court, with the consent of the parties, conducted the proceedings in a simplified procedure, without examining all the case materials.
In addition to admitting guilt, Novokhatsky voluntarily transferred 50 thousand hryvnias for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The court qualified the convict’s actions under part 2 of article 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (receiving an illicit benefit for oneself for influencing the decision of a person authorized to perform the functions of state or local government, as well as the proposal to exert such influence).
Oleksandr Novokhatsky was found guilty and was sentenced to the primary punishment in the form of a fine in the amount of 572 016 hryvnias, and the funds that were the subject of the bribe were confiscated.
Recall, this corruption story goes back to January last year. It was then that Oleksandr Novokhatsky was first detained by law enforcement.
At first Novokhatsky faced prison time for extorting a bribe, all his property was seized, and the businessman himself was released on bail of 908 thousand UAH.
Later the investigation softened the charges to a lesser provision of the article, and the crime became less serious.
Because of this, the court completely lifted the seizure from the property, and reduced the bail to 60.5 thousand UAH, returning the rest of the money to the people who had posted it.
However, in January this year Novokhatsky was detained again, but this time in Lviv. Operatives of the SBU were involved in his search since he began to hide. He was notified of suspicion of embezzlement of property, abuse of official position and official forgery. The case concerned embezzlement of funds allocated for the construction of an anti-radiation shelter in Kherson.
After the verdict in the “Khersonteploenergo” case, prosecutors planned to combine both investigations into one large process, since the new case was assigned to the same judge. However, during the hearing both the prosecutor and the defendant with his lawyers opposed this.
The prosecutor stated that there is no point in merging the cases, since the investigations were conducted by different structures, and the first case about “kickbacks” had already been considered and closed by verdict.
In the end the judge refused to combine the materials. The new case about the embezzlement of money for repairs of the perinatal center was returned to the court clerks for a repeated automatic distribution.
We have repeatedly linked Oleksandr Novokhatsky with Vadym Hlushko, who in 2023-2024 effectively controlled all budget processes in Kherson.
Hlushko was the “cashier” of the former head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration Roman Mrochok.