Fictitious employment scheme for $25,000: lawyer and college director face trial in Zakarpattia

The Zakarpattia Oblast prosecutor’s office has sent an indictment to court against a lawyer and the director of a regional branch of a private college who organized a fictitious employment scheme for a military-age man in order to obtain a deferment from mobilization.

According to investigators, for $25,000 the man was officially registered in a managerial position at the educational institution. He was not actually required to perform his duties — it was enough to appear at the college from time to time to create the appearance of working.

In addition to the one-time payment, the scheme imposed additional obligations on the “employee.” He was required to open a bank card to receive his salary and hand it over to the organizers. At the same time, he was expected to pay taxes and the unified social contribution on his fictitious salary out of his own pocket each month. Thus, after handing over $25,000, the man was also required to cover the ongoing costs of maintaining the formal employment arrangement.

The lawyer and the college branch director are charged with receiving unlawful benefit by an official of a legal entity under private law by prior conspiracy by a group of persons — under Part 4 of Article 368-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The court imposed pre-trial detention on both defendants, with the option of posting bail of approximately 1.1 million hryvnias each.

As the Sudebno-Yuridicheskaya Gazeta previously reported, the Shevchenkivsky District Court of Poltava handed down a verdict in a similar case. The man named in case No. 554/9923/26 personally entered false information into a family composition certificate and a copy of a child’s birth certificate — specifically, he changed the birth year of one of the children in order to confirm the existence of three minors and obtain the right to a mobilization deferment. For this he was sentenced to a fine.