Ruslan Mamedov: new "criminal case" for "large-scale fraud"

      And this is the third "prosecution" in Ruslan Olegovich's criminal history, following preliminary charges brought against him at the time of detention and arrest for "receiving a bribe on a large scale" and "embezzlement using official position."

      However, the new criminal case is not related to Mamedov's political or recreational-public activities, but was initiated by his neighbors—residents of the building at Orlovskaya, 14—who are willing to testify against their now-former homeowners' association chairman.

      Interestingly, the residents' attempts to involve Mamedov at Orlovskaya for nearly two years were unsuccessful. Their appeals through law enforcement agencies—from the prosecutor’s office to UVD, then to UBEP, followed by new contacts—first to the Prosecutor’s Office and the Pervomaysky police department, and also to Police Chief Konstantin Selyanin, ended not only with standard "refusal" papers, but also, as neighbors of Mamedov note, with a regular "loss" of thoroughly prepared investigative materials.

      While the possible "loss" of an exclusive interview protocol from the only one of ten witnesses can somehow be explained, the "loss" of the audit report results (ordered and paid for by the applicants) is impossible to justify even with the wildest imagination.

      The "audit tome," likely "lost" twice by the police, consisted of 260 stitched sheets of A4 format, containing conclusions that Mamedov caused the HOA a loss of half a million rubles to a special account, which is entirely unusable even as scrap paper. To destroy the "evidence base" by burning, the documents would have had to be sneaked past the police checkpoint cameras.

      The only hope for a radical change in the situation, expressed as early as May 2024 when Mamedov's neighbors filed a complaint to the editorial office, was the possible removal of the region’s prosecutor, Andrei Oborok, who was extremely "friendly" to the so-called "gray" schemes of the local authorities.

      Apparently, his "reliable protection" instilled such confidence in the "political contingent" in terms of impunity that Ruslan Olegovich filed a lawsuit demanding monetary compensation from the neighbors for insult to his honor, dignity, and business reputation. Despite the fact that the defendants threatened with a bulky set of compromising documents and police statements, the court ordered each to pay damages to the now-former HOA chairman for "moral suffering."

      Recall that in May 2019, Ruslan Mamedov signed a contract with the company "Asteri" for the facade renovation of the building at Orlovskaya, 14. According to the contract, the contractor was to clad the external walls with vinyl siding. In July, Mamedov signed the Certificate of Completed Work and withdrew 340,000 rubles from the HOA’s special account, which residents only learned about in 2022. They were also surprised to find that the cost of the work included the installation and dismantling of 16-meter scaffolding, which, like the siding on the facades, none of them had seen.

      In July 2020, residents of Orlovskaya, 14, decided to repair their heat unit, agreeing to pay nearly one million rubles from the capital repairs fund. Part of the costs was planned to be recouped through scrap metal sales: "The HOA independently removes the dismantled scrap of ferrous and non-ferrous metals."

      However, after the work, Mamedov questioned the disappearance of the remnants of the dismantled heat unit, which, according to the plumbing journal, was quite substantial: 241 kg of brass, which is priced at 400 rubles per kilogram, and 3.7 tons of cast iron, valued at 23,000 rubles per ton. Mamedov explained the metal’s disappearance as "handover to the contractor as part of mutual settlements due to increased service costs," which he could not confirm with additional agreements or the acceptance-transfer act.

      Hence, the "victimized" residents, reasonably suspecting they had been " robbed," decided to invite an auditing firm, which drew specific conclusions in August 2023. According to the audit report, the damage caused by the facade work amounted to 250,000 rubles. Additionally, the pothole repairs in the yard, carried out by sole proprietor Kazaryan for 154,000 rubles, had their cost doubled due to the overestimated price of filling potholes with broken bricks.

      By the way, when Ruslan Mamedov was invited to the Auditing Commission meeting, which he did not attend, he was handed a "List of Questions," to which he responded emphatically last May: "Illegibly!"