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Influence peddling and illegal ammunition disposal accusations were also made in this case against the president of the Lietkabelis basketball club Alvydas Bieliauskas.
During the pre-trial investigation, data was collected that in spring 2019, while visiting the Vilnius office of A. Bieliauskas, RM Račkauskas may have requested the services of this Vilnius businessman to cover the debt of the public electoral commission. headed by him. after the elections to municipal councils and mayors. euros.
RM Račkauskas is suspected of having promised that various companies run by the Panevėžys city municipality would provide additional financial support to the Vilnius resident-run basketball club without already being allocated from the city budget.
Included in the business council
It was also established that RM Račkauskas could use his influence as mayor to include a businessman from Panevėžys who supported him in the Business Council of the City of Panevėžys, the founder of which is the Municipality of the City of Panevėžys.
“To do this, even the regulations of said council were changed and four members (including the resident of Panev werežys) were delegated from the organization that unites entrepreneurs, as before,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
According to the prosecution, this businessman belongs to the public electoral commission headed by the mayor of Panevėžys.
“Shortly after this person was included in the Panevėžys City Business Council, a celebration of the mayor’s birthday was held in a cafe run by his family. In the cafe of the same family, the mayor of the city also met with like-minded people in the spring of 2019, awaiting the results of the municipal elections. According to the data of the investigation, the premises and the food during these festivities were delivered to the mayor’s guests at very symbolic prices ”, affirms the Prosecutor’s Office.
According to prosecutor Dalia Markauskienė, R. Račkauskas showed disrespect for the Constitution and laws of Lithuania, distorted the principles and norms of the law, undermined trust in the municipality of the city of Panevėžys, the business council of the city of Panevėžys and undermined the prestige and reputation of the latter.
“With these actions, the defendant created a system of arbitrariness, contempt for the law, use of the service and adoption of legal acts that satisfy the interests of other people outside the service, which is fundamentally contrary to the principle of the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania “,
After the police announced the suspicions of R. Račkauskas, he was removed from his post last January. The court allowed him to go back to work at the end of March last year.
R. Račkauskas himself denied the allegations and previously claimed that the municipality has been granting the same amount of support to Lietkabel for three years.
Alvydas Bieliauskas, the president of Lietkabelis, has so far not commented on the suspicions of law enforcement.
This case will be heard by the Panevėžys Regional Court.
The pre-trial investigation was conducted by officials from the Panevėžys Board of the Special Investigation Service, and the investigation was conducted by Dalia Markauskienė, Prosecutor of the Organized Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of the Panevėžys Regional Prosecutor’s Office .
Second pre-trial investigation
This is the second investigation in recent years related to corruption in Panevėžys: a criminal case in which RM Račkauskas is accused of abuse was opened in June 2019 by the Šiauliai Regional Court.
In this case, the mayor of Panevėžys is accused, through his adviser Gintarė Maskoliūnienė, of giving illegal instructions to municipal employees so that the winner of the public procurement and the communication of public procurement organized by the municipality is a related company with businessman Marius Vaupšas “Lukrecijos reklama”.
The Prosecutor’s Office also suspects that the prices of the services, the volumes of the services purchased and other details have been agreed with M. Vaupšas in advance. It is suspected that it has also been agreed in further cooperation that the municipality of the city of Panevėžys will continue to purchase consulting services from Lukrecijos reklamos.
Last year, Vaupšas died in January. The criminal proceedings against him are closed.
Based on the facts of the case, useful consultations could have been provided to R. Račkauskas personally as a politician.
This case was separated from a broader investigation into possible corruption in the municipality of Panevėžys started in June 2018, which ended last July after the prosecution evaluated the data collected by the Special Investigation Service.
R. Račkauskas was removed from his post from the beginning of the pre-trial investigation until the end of his term in March 2019.
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