MOSCOW, June 21 (RAPSI) — Oleg Mitvol, a former official of Russia’s environment agency Rosprirodnadzor, charged with especially serious fraud, has made a plea bargain, the Krasnoyarsk regional court informs RAPSI.

Mitvol, a member of an engineering and construction survey organization in the city of Krasnoyarsk, tried to persuade the court to mitigate the previously taken in his regard preventive measure in the form of pretrial detention; nevertheless, his appeal was dismissed by the court.

Mitvol’s lawyer moved for the mitigation of the pretrial detention referring to the fact that the defendant had entered into a pretrial agreement and explaining that Mitvol had to care about his disabled mother, a young daughter and an unemployed wife. Moreover, Mitvol, according to the lawyer, was ready to voluntarily compensate for the damage caused by his actions. The court was also provided with personal guarantees from State Duma lawmakers Alexander Khinshtein and Oleg Savchenko, according to case materials.

The prosecutor's office objected, pointing out that the damage from the alleged crime was caused to the state budget, Mitvol was detained at the airport while trying to flee abroad, and citing the serious nature of the alleged crime, as investigators believed that the ex-deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor had embezzled more than 900 million rubles (about $16 million at the current exchange rate).

Mitvol held the post of deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor agency from 2004 until 2009. He then served as prefect for Moscow's Northern Administrative District from July 2009 until October 2010. He has been the chairman of the board of the Krasnoyarsk Trust for Engineering and Construction Surveys since 2018. The company won a contract to take part in the construction of the Krasnoyarsk metro in 2019.