An unprecedented scandal with a judge: what the “owner of the castle” near Poltava paid for

The High Council of Justice dismissed the chairman of the Court of Appeal in the Poltava region, Sergei Galyonkin, who “specialized” in protecting drunk drivers and suggested “right decisions” to his colleagues.

On September 12, the High Council of Justice decided to dismiss the 63-year-old chairman of the Court of Appeal in the Poltava region, Sergei Galyonkin, whom the people call (or have now already called) the main “decider” in the Poltava region.

The judge’s labor success in his chosen field is eloquently evidenced by his 4-story house with domes, similar to a church or a real castle, which he built in the suburbs of Poltava. Photos and videos of this “masterpiece of architecture” with a total area of ​​661 square meters have been circulating on the Internet for a long time. “Well, well, we put together some money with my wife and parents and built it a few years later,” Mr. Galyonkin once explained to public activists (the quote is not verbatim).

In order not to pay 17 thousand UAH, he gave the judge 1800 dollars on his paw and “burned” him

Recently, Galyonkin has “specialized” in cases of violators of traffic rules. And since there are always a lot of them (since the beginning of the year, for example, 639 road accidents occurred in the Poltava region, a significant part of which were committed by drunk drivers), the number of road accidents turned into financial achievements of the judge. After all, avoiding administrative punishment costs violators a lot of money. The chairman of the court also persuaded other colleagues to take illegal actions by interfering in administrative matters.

To understand how much official income Sergei Galenkin lost after his dismissal, just look at his declaration for 2023. As can be seen from it, his salary for 12 months is almost 3 million hryvnia. The curtain on how the judge worked was partially lifted by NABU detectives, who conducted a pre-trial investigation in the disciplinary proceedings opened against him.

This story begins on May 19, 2022. In the morning, on Zenkovskaya Street in Poltava, the road patrol crew stopped a Chery Amulet car. The driver Yuri Ulitin showed mild signs of alcohol intoxication, which was confirmed by a breathalyzer. The patrol officers drew up a corresponding protocol and sent it for consideration to the Kyiv District Court.

Ulitin immediately rushed to look for someone who would agree to help him avoid administrative liability, and turned to lawyer Maxim Sadoshenko for legal assistance. He advised the offender... to give the judge a “paw.” And he involved lawyer Oleg Butyrin, whose assistant he allegedly was, in solving the case. But the “great strategists” were left with nothing - district judge Yuriy Kulish did not take the money and made a fair decision, according to which Ulitin was found guilty of driving while intoxicated, for which he had to pay a fine of 17,000 UAH and had no money for a whole year the right to drive a car.

Then the lawyers went to the appellate court. Since the appeal against the decision of the Kievsky District Court of Poltava strangely ended up in the proceedings of Sergei Galyonkin, Oleg Butyrin advised his client to take as a lawyer Vladimir Kostenko, who was on good terms with the chief judge of the appeal court.

Having received an advance payment of $300, on November 15, 2022, Sergei Galyonkin overturned the decision of the court of first instance, arguing that the case file contained only part of the video from the patrolman’s chest camera and recorded only the moment of communication between the driver and the patrol officers, and not the entire process of stopping the car. He also questioned the breathalyzer readings. That is, he satisfied all the stated requests of lawyer Vladimir Kostenko.

Ulitin was thus acquitted!

The perpetrator would have to silently agree with the decision of the district court, and it would have cost him much less. But he undertook to bring everyone to clean water and became an agent of NABU. Thus, we now know the rates of judicial “fairness”.

After the acquittal, as a sign of gratitude, lawyer Kostenko brought the second tranche of a bribe in the amount of $1,500 to a person close to the judge who worked in the regional court. After this, on November 17, 2022, NABU detectives, who conducted covert investigative actions against Galenkin, conducted a search in several court rooms. However, as noted in the decision of the Third Disciplinary Chamber of the VRP, NABU still failed to establish the fact that funds were transferred to Sergei Galyonkin, and therefore it is unknown whether the judge should have received them at all.

Searches were carried out at the place of work and residence of lawyers Butyrin, Kostenko and lawyer Sadoshenko, which resulted in the discovery of large sums of money in foreign currency, gold items, jewelry and bullion, as well as precious ancient coins. The Supreme Anti-Corruption Court then chose preventive measures for these individuals.

Colleague's drunken son cannot be guilty

In parallel with this case, Mr. Galyonkin, not knowing that he was in the crosshairs of anti-corruption fighters, began to defend another person who likes to drive drunk. This time, however, for free, showing only solidarity with colleague Valentin Tomilko. Mr. Tomilko’s son, Alexander, according to administrative proceedings, was also stopped by the road patrol. This happened around ten in the evening on September 24, 2022 on Alexander Bedny Street in Poltava, immediately after he drove away from the bar in a BMW X5. The police suspected that the driver was not completely sober, and took him to the Poltava Regional Center for Addiction Therapy. The narcologist confirmed the police’s assumptions by detecting alcohol in the client’s tests.

The case was submitted to the judge of the Leninsky District Court of Poltava, Victoria Moskalenko. The father of the “penalty officer” did not dare to directly interfere with the course of his colleague’s judicial investigation, but asked the boss about it. A secret conversation between men in robes took place in Galyonkin’s office the day before the NABU searches. Valentin Tomilko complained that his son began drinking again after the divorce... But, they say, the police violated a number of legal norms when drawing up an administrative protocol, so Alexander needs to be acquitted.

Galenkin called his man, the chairman of the Leninsky District Court, Natalya Kryuchko, and asked to come for an important conversation, during which he set the task of influencing the new employee so that she would make the right decision.

NABU investigators recorded this conversation between the three, which was included in the materials of the High Council of Justice. Judging by the conversation, this is not the first time Tomilko’s son has been caught driving while intoxicated. At that time, as his father explained, he drank only a couple of bottles of beer with friends, but the police, they say, did not indicate the degree of alcohol intoxication in the report.

The trio decides that there were “gross violations” in the preparation of the protocol, and therefore the judge’s child is not guilty of anything. “We are normal people, we will always do anything. If you need help, we will always help,” notes Sergei Galyonkin, “eloquently,” and his colleague Natalya Kryuchko promises to talk with judge Victoria Moskalenko, because “there’s nothing like something political there.”

However, the new judge (Victoria Moskalenko, in connection with the occupation of Rubizhne, Lugansk region, where she worked as a judge in the city court, was sent to the Leninsky District Court of Poltava) did not succumb to external influence and fined Alexander Tomilko 17,000 UAH for drunk driving and deprived him of his driver’s license for 1 year

Alexander Tomilko and his lawyer, taking into account the conflict of interest, challenged the decision in the Kharkov Court of Appeal. And he returned the case to the patrol police to correct the shortcomings. However, they could not add video from body cameras to the case during Tomilko’s medical examination - in the addiction treatment center, it turns out, there are internal regulations that do not allow recording documents that contain personal data...

It was this video that was not enough for Leninsky District Court judge Marina Vysokikh as evidence of Alexander Tomilko’s guilt. Therefore, on March 21 of this year, she closed the proceedings for lack of evidence of an offense.

Corporate Humanism in Defense of Bad Faith

At the end of December 2023, the Third Disciplinary Chamber of the High Council of Justice, based on a complaint from the director of NABU Semyon Krivonos, opened disciplinary proceedings against the judge of the Poltava Court of Appeal Galyonkin S.A. “on the basis of his behavior that discredits the title of a judge or undermines the authority of justice.” It is noteworthy that the old composition of the chamber only gave Galyonkin a severe reprimand with the deprivation of additional payments to his official salary for three months. In other words, he showed corporate humanism. However, Galyonkin did not like the “excessive” severity, and he appealed the decision. NABU did not agree with the leniency of the punishment and also appealed it.

By the way, the old composition of the Supreme Court often simply dismissed unscrupulous judges instead of dismissal, which is why hundreds of millions of hryvnia are spent annually on their maintenance from the budget.

And yet, on June 27, the High Council of Justice revised the decision of the Third Disciplinary Chamber and applied the most severe disciplinary sanction to the Chairman of the Poltava Court of Appeal Sergei Galyonkin - a proposal to dismiss him from the post of judge. The proposal was made by VSP member Roman Maselko. It was supported by the majority. Although before this, some suggested limiting Galyonkin’s temporary removal from duties.

At the court hearing, Galyonkin admitted that he did not have the right to extra-procedural communication with lawyers and other judges, since this could cause “an outside observer to mistrust the judges and the judiciary as a whole.” As for the case with the son of Valentin Tomilko, the judge asked to take into account that he approached this issue purely “humanly”. And by “help” he means only making a fair decision. Kryuchko summoned the judge to consult with him.

As a result of the consideration of the case, Galyonkin was dismissed from his position, despite the fact that he tried several times to postpone the meeting, citing indisposition.

By the way, NABU filed a complaint with the Supreme Court against Valentin Tomilko on the basis of his behavior that discredits the title of a judge or undermines the authority of justice, in particular in matters of morality, honesty, integrity, compliance with other norms of judicial ethics and standards of conduct that ensure public confidence in to the court. The judge wanted to quietly resign from office, but the High Council of Justice stopped consideration of his application on August 27 this year due to disciplinary proceedings opened 20 days earlier.

There is no information yet about filing a complaint against Natalia Kryuchko.

Each judge bears personal responsibility for the judiciary as a whole

“This decision of the High Council of Justice can be called unprecedented: for interfering in the activities of other judges, the long-time chairman of the court of appeal was expelled from the judicial ranks in disgrace,” Larisa Golnik, a whistleblower judge from the Oktyabrsky District Court of Poltava, commented on the decision on her Facebook page. “This decision can be called a hard-won one, because the procedures dragged on for a long time, including due to certain actions on the part of an unscrupulous judge and his lawyer. At the same time, Galyonkin tried to formalize an honorable resignation - with a huge severance pay and lifelong salary. In the end, the Supreme Court changed the decision of the Third Disciplinary Chamber and imposed a penalty on Judge Galyonkin in the form of a dismissal notice. All that remained was to make a purely formal decision on dismissal, which took another 2.5 months.

But I would like to note not the sluggishness of the judicial management bodies regarding the cleansing of the ranks of judges, but the fact that the disgraced mantle-bearer still held the administrative position of chairman (!) of the Court of Appeal (!). And the team of judges did not see any problem in this. And he made no effort to restore the authority of justice - at least in his own court.

Alarm bells have sounded before. And the scandals with his four-story “church” house did not prevent Galyonkin from being elected chairman of the appeal court.

Even the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice to dismiss the “decider in a robe” from the position of judge did not prevent him from greeting his colleagues and all Ukrainians on Constitution Day on June 28 from the official page of the court - in the status of the “head” of the institution! With phrases like “we are building a democratic, rule-of-law state where justice reigns.”

Meetings of judges of the Poltava Court of Appeal, which took place during the current year, concerned everyday issues. The judicial staff did not see the need to remove the odious chairman of the court from his administrative position.

Information: court chairmen and their deputies are elected, and also removed from these positions by assemblies of judges - the primary link of judicial self-government. But, as Galenkin’s example shows, at the level of specific judicial groups there is no desire for self-purification of the system. Members of the judiciary do not feel any discomfort from associating themselves with the chairman of the court, who caused irreparable damage to the authority of justice.

Meanwhile, in the opinion of the Advisory Council of European Judges No. 21 (Zagreb, 09.11.2018) “Preventing corruption among judges” it is written: “Each judge bears personal responsibility not only for his own behavior, but also for the judiciary as a whole.”