A cassation court has overturned an acquittal and reinstated a first-instance conviction against a man accused of fraud in home construction and apartment renovation in Ust-Kamenogorsk, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to the Telegram channel "Current News of Cassation Courts," the man posted online advertisements for home construction and apartment renovation in Ust-Kamenogorsk. He signed contract agreements with citizens and took their money without having the labor or material and technical resources to carry out the construction and installation work. After failing to deliver on his promises, he stopped communicating with previous clients while continuing to seek out and attract new ones. Nine people were recognized as victims in the criminal case.
The first-instance court convicted the man of large-scale fraud and sentenced him to 3 years and 4 months in prison, ordering him to pay more than 23 million tenge in material damages to the victims.
The appellate court overturned the verdict and acquitted him, treating the events as a failure to fulfill civil-law obligations to clients.
The cassation court found that the appellate court had assessed the evidence one-sidedly. The defendant signed new contracts without fulfilling previously accepted obligations and without sufficient staff or material resources. Taken together, these circumstances confirmed that he had formed the intent to embezzle the funds before receiving them.
The convicted man's office, limited liability partnership, sole proprietorship, seal, and individual employment contracts, along with the partial performance of work in conditions where the final result was not achieved and a significant portion of the money was lost to the victims, should be assessed as a facade of legitimate activity. These circumstances indicate a deliberate creation of the outward attributes of a reliable contractor in order to gain the trust of an unlimited number of citizens.
As a result, the appellate court did not refute the evidence underlying the guilty verdict, and the cassation court overturned the acquittal and left the first-instance verdict unchanged.