Sat, Feb 11 2012

Second sentence against former Sofia heating utility head

Thu, Jun 25 2009 17:35 CET

byAlex Bivol

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Second sentence against former Sofia heating utility head

Valentin Dimitrov

Photo: Georgi Kozhouharov

The Sofia City Court found the former head of Sofia's heating utility Toplofikatsiya, Valentin Dimitrov, guilty of siphoning off six million leva from the firm and sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment and confiscation of all his assets, Bulgarian media reported on June 25 2009.

It was the second sentence issued against Dimitrov, who was found guilty in June 2008 of failing to report to the Bulgarian National Bank the balance of payments data on a number of deals, worth about 37 million leva, for which he is to spend five years in jail.

Dimitrov has been under investigation for nearly three years after he was arrested on charges of money laundering, malfeasance, siphoning off funds, tax evasion and currency fraud. Arrested in 2006, he spent 10 months in prison before finally being released on bail. For a long period of time, Dimitrov's lawyers have managed to delay the lawsuits by postponing most of the court hearings on various grounds, mostly health reasons.

Two of Dimitrov's co-defendants were also found guilty - former Toplofikatsiya logistics head Lina Ablanska was sentence to 12 years imprisonment and Maya Stoilova, the manager of the company used to siphon off the funds, was sentenced to 10 years in jail. The court also ordered the confiscation of half their assets.

Another two co-defendants, Dimitrov's two former deputies Georgi Rogachev and Emil Antonov, were both found not guilty.

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All is not well

Pleading illness has become an easy way to postpone a trial

Former head of Sofia's heating utility sentenced to five years in prison

The former head of Sofia's heating utility Toplofikatsia Valentin Dimitrov was sentenced to five years imprisonment by Sofia Regional Court on May 30 2008, Bulgarian National Television (BNT) said. As manager of PRO MARK company Dimitrov did not report to the Bulgarian National Bank the balance of payments data on a number of deals, worth about 37 million leva, the court decided. For this violation Dimitrov was given five years.

First trial against former head Toplofikatsiya launched

Sofia Regional Court launched the first of a number of cases against former head of Toplofikatsiya-Sofia Valentin Dimitrov in spite of desperate attempts of his defence lawyer to put off the trial and under a false bomb alarm in the court's building, mediapool.bg reported. On January 18 Dimitrov faced the magistrates accused of currency fraud. The charges included financial deals in violation of currency legislation, with a total value of over 5 million leva, which had taken place between October 20 1999 and June 25 2003.

FORMER SOFIA HEATING UTILITY BOSS TO FACE COURT WITHIN DAYS - DJAMBAZOV

The amended bill of indictment against the former director of the Sofia heating utility, Valentin Dimitrov, will be filed within days, prosecutor on the case Bojidar Djambazov announced on October 25, as quoted by Dnevnik business daily. Formal errors and technical inconsistencies in the bill of indictment prevented a court panel from holding in August the first hearing on the case. While the Prosecutor's Office said the corrections to the bill were ready, Djambazov would not commit to a date for the next hearing on the case. He added, though, that Dimitrov will also be facing trial on charges such as abuse in office - namely, misappropriation of funds - and money laundering. Charges are yet in the drafting stage.

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