As you know, the happy residents of the Sosny country-house cooperative, deputies Neverov and Rudensky, “won” their defamation lawsuits against me.
That “victory” was largely secured by lease agreements that Neverov and Rudensky brought to court as the sole and indisputable proof that the undeclared land they used had a lawful origin. As it turns out, those agreements were fake—forgeries that Rudensky’s lawyers began preparing just hours after our investigation was published.
Even a cursory look at Neverov’s agreement during the court hearing made it obvious—to everyone except the court—that it had been thrown together amateurishly and was nothing more than a sham. Despite how blatant the forgery was, proving it seemed impossible. We had nearly resigned ourselves to the idea that the story would remain shrouded in mystery, but correspondence published on a website now banned in Russia put everything in its proper place:
And as a bonus, you can also read about how legal consultants spent a full 11 billable hours analyzing my 55-second appearance on TV Rain, and how an appraiser hired by the Sosny cooperative valued their land at 132 times the price they paid for it.
Earlier this month, the mysterious outlet Shaltai-Boltai once again delighted the Anti-Corruption Foundation with a fresh batch of archives. This time, it published the correspondence of Rudensky’s aide, Valentin Izidorovich Faust. Judging by the correspondence, Valentin Faust is one of Igor Rudensky’s closest aides. He provides legal support for the Rudensky family business. He helps with real estate paperwork, Rudensky’s criminal case in Greece, and so on. And lawyer Faust also helps Igor Rudensky and his neighbor in the Sosny cooperative, Sergei Neverov, forge documents for court.
On November 27, 2013, the Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation into the Sosny country-house cooperative, United Russia officials, and their dachas. In Neverov’s case, we alleged that he had failed to declare plots of land that he was in fact using.
Neverov responded as follows: “There is nothing in the published information that could indicate that I violated the law.”
On November 28, 2013, less than 24 hours after the publication, someone identified as Evgeny ER sent Valentin Faust, Rudensky’s lawyer, a scan of Olga Neverova’s passport with the note: “Please note that the registration address is from 2013; if you need the previous one, I’m ready to send it.”
Why did Evgeny ask him to pay attention to the registration address? Because the Moscow registration was new, dated February 26, 2013. But the lease agreement that Neverov brought to court, which listed his wife’s passport details, was dated January 28, 2013. At that point, she did not yet have a Moscow registration. So when drawing it up retroactively, it was important to insert the correct registration address. Another 40 minutes later, Faust received a second email with Neverova’s address prior to February 26, 2013. Before that, Neverov’s wife had been registered in Novokuznetsk, and that is precisely the address listed in the lease agreement.
On December 30, 2013, Faust sent Neverov’s aide Evgeny an agreement in Olga Neverova’s name dated January 30, 2013.
At our court hearing, Neverov would produce this very same agreement, only dated January 28, 2013 and with the sublessee changed for some reason. The document metadata says it was created on November 28, 2013—the day after the post was published.
It is unquestionably the same document, since even the formatting errors were preserved.
Forgery or not, this document is in itself an example of sloppy legal work. It was evidently drafted in a rush and on the fly. As we already wrote, it names the wrong lessor (“Sistem” instead of “Setei”), and the taxpayer identification number listed does not exist at all.
We will probably never know why deputy Rudensky, fully aware that his own documents were just as fake, went to court to “defend his honor and dignity.” But for deputy Rudensky, this was apparently of the utmost importance. So, in the immediate aftermath, he hired lawyers from the firm of fellow United Russia member Vladimir Pligin for advice “regarding land plots.” He was billed €8,000 just for the initial analysis. The lawyers spent a full 11 hours analyzing my 55-second interview on TV Rain.
And as for forgery—here you go. Let’s look at a screenshot dated April 8, 2014. In it, Faust writes to someone named Biryukov: “When you meet with Shustenko, print out the first page and give it to him for replacement. The contract term has been corrected.” Attached is Shustenko’s agreement with 71-year-old owner of property in Cyprus Valentina Rudenskaya, dated December 30 of the previous year.
Two weeks before the defamation hearing, on May 15, 2014, Valentin Faust sent businessman Shustenko himself two sets of lease agreements—one for the past year, 2013, and one for the current year, 2014. The email subject line was “sublease agreements for signature.” Let’s take a look at those as well:
Now look closely at the creation dates of the 2013 documents. The “sublease agreement” dated January 25, 2013 was in fact created 10 months later—on November 27, 2013.
Speaking of honor and dignity: do these United Russia deputies know that they are engaging in forgery and falsification? They do, and very well. They also know that they botched the details in Neverov’s agreement and that the price stated in it is laughable.
These miracle lawyers hired a professional appraiser to determine how much this land could have been worth in 2004–2005. The appraiser writes: 154.5 million rubles, that is, 132,500 rubles per sotka (100 square meters).
A reminder: the Sosny residents got the land for 132 (ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO) times less—at 1,000 rubles per sotka.
While Rudensky’s and Neverov’s aides were falsifying documents and trying somehow to cover it up, the deputies kept giving one interview after another, lying about mothers-in-law, mothers, and contracts with astonishing prices. They lied to their colleagues on the State Duma commission overseeing the accuracy of income disclosures, which of course found nothing wrong. They paid lawyers and then lied again in court about the profitable sale of a two-room apartment in Novokuznetsk, about the wife’s income in 2006, supposedly enough to buy the land, the house, and furnish it with tables costing €30,000.
After that much public lying, anyone would need a psychological relief room.
And what about our resourceful lawyer Faust? For his special services to the Sosny non-commercial partnership, Rudensky installed him on a State Duma “expert council” that Rudensky himself had created on economic policy, strategic planning, and investment. Those are the kind of experts they have in the State Duma.
We are currently considering the launch of criminal proceedings against this whole cozy little gang of falsifiers for forgery and document falsification.