On 29 May, the High Anti-Corruption Court delivered a guilty verdict in the case of illegal enrichment of Vitaliy Sukhovych, a member of the Rivne Regional Council. This was reported by the Anti-Corruption Action Centre.
The verdict was passed by judges Vira Mykhaylenko, Timur Khamzin and Serhiy Moysak.
In November 2023, SBI investigators searched Sukhovych's home and seized cash in various currencies in the equivalent of UAH 108 million. This amount exceeded his family's legitimate income by over UAH 98 million.
Sukhovych pleaded guilty and made a deal with the prosecutor. He received a 5-year suspended sentence with a probationary period of 3 years.
The court also counted the period of Sukhovych's detention from 24 November 2023 to 24 January 2024 as part of the sentence.
The sanction of the article on illicit enrichment does not provide for the confiscation of property, so the court applied a special confiscation to more than UAH 98 million: This amount included USD 1.34 million, EUR 1.034 million and UAH 1.56 million. Sukhovych also transferred another UAH 5 million to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
For many years, Vitaliy Sukhovych headed the state enterprise Vysotske Forestry, and was also the head of the regional forestry and hunting department and deputy director of the Polissya Forestry Office of the state enterprise Forests of Ukraine.
In 2015, Sukhovych was elected to the Rivne Regional Council as a member of the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, and in 2020 - as a member of the Strength and Honour party.