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The Lithuanian Supreme Court (LAT) panel of judges upheld the prosecutor’s appeal and annulled the Šiauliai Regional Court’s acquittal in a case in which two car dealers, 32-year-old Mindaugas Gumuliauskas and 37-year-old Ben Grigas , were charged with acquiring or selling criminally obtained property.
The SCL panel of judges referred the case for further examination on appeal. M. Gumuliauskas was found guilty in this criminal case solely for fraud in the seizure of foreign assets worth more than 9500 euros.
In the criminal case, it was alleged that at the end of 2016 Grig acquired a large Audi Q7 car in Sweden, worth several tens of thousands of euros, which had previously been fraudulently acquired from a Swedish company. It was believed that the defendant knew that the property had been obtained by criminal means, but he continued with his actions and after half a year he sold the car to another defendant, M. Gumuliauskas, for 8,000 euros.
The latter, suspected of knowing that the property was obtained by criminal means, made a deal with another person and the company, in exchange for a luxury car, received about € 1,000 and two BMW cars worth € 25,800. The following day, Lithuanian officials stopped a car wanted by the Swedish police authorities in Radviliškis.
In this case, M. Gumuliauskas was charged under article 182 of the Penal Code. 2 d. (for serious fraud) and art. 2 d.
Grig was charged under article 189 of the Penal Code. 2 d. (only for proceeds of crime).
Šiauliai District Court Radviliškis Palace 2019 July 11, the defendants were acquitted by conviction for the acquisition or sale of a criminally obtained car (according to article 189 of the Penal Code) without having committed an act that has the characteristics of a crime or criminal offense.
Only M. Gumuliauskas was convicted of fraud (according to article 182 of the CC).
Šiauliai Regional Court of Appeal in 2020 February 26 In its judgment, the Court of First Instance upheld the part of the judgment of the Court of First Instance that acquitted the defendant of the acquisition or sale of a car obtained through crime. The district court also confirmed that one of the defendants had been reasonably convicted of fraud.
Tomas Grušas, Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Šiauliai District Prosecutor’s Office of the Šiauliai Regional Prosecutor’s Office, who filed the appeal, requested that the judgment of the appeal court be set aside and that the case be re-examined on appeal.
He stated that the appeals court had not based its findings on a thorough and impartial examination of all the circumstances of the case, nor had it made reasoned conclusions on the merits of the appeal. Therefore, the court of appeals must be considered to have committed substantial violations of the Code of Criminal Procedure when reviewing the judgment of the court of first instance. The panel of judges of the Lithuanian Supreme Court supported such arguments of the cassation appeal, according to a report published by the Attorney General’s Office on Friday.
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