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The Leninsky Court of Vladivostok sentenced Mayor Vladimir Nikolayev to a suspended four and a half year imprisonment with three years parole for the abuse of power charges, Monday.

At the trial, which started December 17, the court proved Nikolayev guilty in using funds from the city budget to pay for his and his family’s personal security detail, as well as selling federal land plots to private individuals.

According to the investigation, while serving as mayor Nikolayev misused money from the budget to pay police bodyguards to accompany him during everyday trips, and for the security of his family and apartment. The inspection by the city’s Prosecutor’s Office revealed that neither Nikolayev nor the city administration’s documents he was carrying with him required special protection.

The damages brought to the city’s budget by the mayor’s actions have been estimated at 13.3 million rubles ($538,500).

The investigation also revealed that the city administration inappropriately sold city land to individuals at low prices for the period of 49 years.

Along with receiving the suspended imprisonment verdict with a three-year parole, Nikolayev is also banned from taking any governmental position for three years.

Nikolayev, who had been kept in custody for over nine months, fully pleaded guilty at the trial and was released from custody in the court room under the pledge not to leave the city.

He had also paid the sum of 300,000 rubles ($12,150), part of the compensation for the damage brought by his actions to the city budget.



Meanwhile, Vladivostok Prosecutor’s Office intends to appeal the court’s verdict considering it ‘too mild’, a statement from the regional Prosecutor’s Office said Monday.

Earlier, the prosecuting officials demanded at the trial that Nikolayev be sentenced to five years in prison with the three-year prohibition to occupy any administrative position. Nikolayev’s lawyers, however, deemed the officials’ verdict too harsh.

The appeal will be submitted to Primorye’s Court, with the office demanding a cancellation of the announced sentence and will insist on the initial one, The Vladivostok cited Dmitry Praslov, Deputy Prosecutor for the city Prosecutor’s Office.

Nikolayev, who was elected Vladivostok mayor in July 2004, was dismissed from his position by the city’s court in late February, with a criminal case started against him. On March 6, Nikolayev was detained in Moscow by federal law enforcement and the next day he was put under arrest and imprisoned in a temporary isolation ward in Vladivostok.