Ex-Volyn RSA Official Sentenced for Bribery

Lutsk City District Court sentenced the former head of the Department of Transport and Communications of the Volyn Regional State Administration, Natalia Ostapkovych, for bribery. The accused demanded $1,500 from an entrepreneur for declaring him the winner of a passenger transportation competition. For this, the official was sentenced to 5 years in prison and deprived of her 5th rank as a civil servant.

According to the verdict of June 23, in December 2020, the head of the transport and communications department of the Volyn Regional State Administration, Nataliya Ostapkovych, agreed with a local individual entrepreneur that for a bribe of $1,500, she would determine him as the winner of a competition for the transportation of passengers on the Lutsk - Vysotsk bus route. The official was detained on March 10, 2021, when she received the agreed amount in the entrance to her house.

During the trial, Nataliya Ostapkovych pleaded not guilty. The official claimed that the entire case was fabricated and that she had never demanded or received a bribe.

Judge Anatoliy Marchuk found Natalia Ostapkovych guilty of Part 3 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (extortion and acceptance of an unlawful benefit by an official) and sentenced her to 5 years in prison with deprivation of the 5th rank of a civil servant within category "B". The decision can still be appealed in the court of appeal.

Natalia Ostapkovych is a figurehead of the EBK base.

We also reported that NABU searched the father-in-law of AMCU Chairman Kyrylenko.