Bribes to the bitter Kaunas coroner and lawyers – parents and children are meant to shake their pockets – Respublika.lt

Committed as accomplices

The Panevėžys District Court on Tuesday awarded 40,000 to 65-year-old Rimantas Grigis, who was dismissed from his position as a judge for taking a bribe. euro fine. Due to bribery and influence peddling, his son Tautvydas Grigis was awarded a final fine of 29.8 thousand. EUR 10,000 each for lawyers Matilda Liatukaita and her father B.Liatukas, 67, who were temporarily removed from the list of practicing lawyers. EUR fines.

Another lawyer was charged, but the woman died during the trial, so the criminal proceedings against her were terminated. The fact that they committed the criminal acts as accomplices was recognized as an aggravating circumstance for all the defendants.

R. Grigas was one of the oldest judges who worked in the Kaunas Chamber of the Kaunas District Court – he has been a judge since 1999. He specialized in criminal and administrative misdemeanor cases.

In this court in 1996-2020 criminal cases were also examined by B. Liatukas. After that he became a lawyer.

Tried to tear the money

As the court reported, the bribe was given to the judge for the fact that the term of revocation of the driver’s license was shortened from one year to 3 months in the case of the administrative offense pending on appeal for M. Liatukaitė, who is working in Kaunas, and the driving of cars that are not equipped with anti-alcohol engine locks was additionally banned for a year.

The court established that the bribery of R. Grigo was initiated by M. Liatukaitė together with her father. The latter, using acquaintances, promised to hand over a bribe. The firm of another Kaunas lawyer (now deceased) had a cooperation agreement with the judge’s son. B. Liatukas agreed with this colleague that she and T. Grig will hand over the money.

As established, the lawyer and the judge’s son from 2 thousand. took 500 euros each of the bribes, and one thousand euros were handed over to the judge at his place of work at the time. As the officers who conducted the investigation claimed, during the search of R. Grigo’s house, he tried to destroy the evidence – to tear up the bribe.

The lawyers admitted their guilt in full, but the former judge and her son denied it. Both men testified that the money found with them was not related to the aspiration to make a favorable decision for M. Liatukaitė’s defendant, contradicting the data in the case.

Didn’t catch anything

As “Vakaro žinios” wrote, the prosecutor’s office transferred this case to the Kaunas District Court in March 2022. However, it appealed to the Lithuanian Court of Appeal to transfer it to another district court. This was done in order to avoid doubts about impartiality. It was also assessed that the then judges B .Liatukas and R.Grig had collegial ties with the judges of the Criminal Cases Department of the Kaunas District Court, and in separate periods most of them were even colleagues with R.Grig.

Corruption scandal in the Kaunas court in 2021. in autumn After that, President Gitanas Nausėda dismissed R. Grigas from his position due to demeaning the name of the judge.

The Kaunian filed a lawsuit against the office of the country’s president, the Council of Judges and the State of Lithuania, represented by the Ministry of Justice, regarding the dismissal from his duties as illegal and the awarding of an average salary, but he got nothing.

According to the Court of Appeal, R. Grigas engaged in ambiguous conversations with his son regarding the possibility of receiving a favorable court decision for a reward, gave the impression that relevant persons could influence his decisions, accepted the money that his son put under his work table, hid it and wanted to destroy