The gift was equated to a bribe, and its giver was prosecuted for incriminating bribery. The value of both invitations according to the ticket price rate was 90 euros.
Prosecutor Ričardas Gailevičius, who is in charge of the pre-trial investigation, submitted the case to the court on Monday.
On May 10, 2024, the ballet artist, at the request of her acquaintance Maria B., took the envelope intended for the judge with invitations to attend the performance “Another Cinderella Story” on May 22 to the Kaunas district court.
Since the judge was not at work at that time, the artist left invitations for other court employees.
After seeing the invitations, the judge did not understand who provided them and for what, but she realized that it could be a bribe.
The principled judge informed the assistant to the chairman of the Kaunas district court on corruption issues about this, and law enforcement officials were contacted soon after.
The latter found out who provided the invitations to the judge, and filed a criminal case against Marija B., an emigrant from Kaunas working in Germany, for trying to bribe the judge.
During the interrogation, the suspect did not admit her guilt – in her opinion, this is not a bribe, but simply an “intellectual gift”. It is said that she only wanted to thank the judge, but not to bribe her.
However, law enforcement viewed this case in a completely different way – any material gift is treated as a bribe.
The prosecutor’s office proposed to the court to impose a fine of EUR 4,000 on Marija B. in accordance with the criminal order – the decision should be made within two weeks.
There was no previous criminal conviction.
The ballet dancer was interviewed as a witness in the case.
2024-08-27 03:48:35