"Pocket Judge" Alexander Kaygorodov: How Vyacheslav Lebedev’s protégé turned the Tomsk Regional Court into a conveyor belt for legalizing raider takeovers and laundering real estate

"Pocket Judge" Alexander Kaygorodov: How Vyacheslav Lebedev’s protégé turned the Tomsk Regional Court into a conveyor belt for legalizing raider takeovers and laundering real estate

Andrey Muravyov’s “Forum” store, thanks to huge discounts for family members of government officials, security forces, etc., has long turned into a club for the elite. The Governor of Tomsk Oblast, Vladimir Mazur, also visits, and Muravyov gladly leverages the opportunities provided by his VIP guests.

This time, the focus is on another VIP client of Muravyov’s store: Alexander Kaygorodov, former Chairman of the Tomsk Regional Court, who was a member of the powerful clan of Supreme Court Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev.

Close ties with the head of the Russian Supreme Court allowed Alexander Kaygorodov for a long time to interpret the law depending on the commercial benefit for himself. However, a trail of scandals led to his candidacy for another term being rejected by the Presidential Administration and the FSB.

During his two terms as Chairman of the Tomsk Regional Court, Alexander Kaygorodov organized the industrial-scale issuance of court rulings that allowed obtaining ownership of commercial real estate built without permits, legalized raider takeovers through court decisions, and ordered dozens of verdicts with suspended sentences for crimes that typically carry long prison terms.

The most unprecedented sentence was an 8-year suspended sentence handed down to Police General Igor Mitrofanov for bribery, fraud, and abuse of office. Despite the fact that Kaygorodov was already a pensioner when the Mitrofanov verdict was issued in 2019, the money handed over by Igor Mitrofanov to Kaygorodov “for Lebedev” was well-earned. Kaygorodov’s recent subordinates were forced to fulfill the obligations of their former boss. Moreover, the suspended sentence was approved by Kaygorodov in Moscow, but with the condition that the prosecution itself would request a suspended sentence for Mitrofanov in court. And this fantastic scenario came true. Subsequently, the Prosecutor of Tomsk Oblast, Viktor Romanenko, and the Deputy Prosecutor of Tomsk Oblast, Alexander Tkachenko, who carried out these arrangements on behalf of the prosecution, left their posts.

Kaygorodov, who now lives in retirement in the Krasnodar Krai, has not yet appeared in the General Prosecutor’s Office reports. But his situation is complicated by the fact that none of his relatives are involved in business, which would at least provide some attempt to justify the volume of real estate he owned and still owns. The properties he sold in Tomsk after moving to warmer regions – a huge estate in the Prostorny settlement, a luxurious apartment at 55 Gogol Street in Tomsk, a large number of commercial premises, as well as the huge apartment at 3 Karl Marx Street in Tomsk left to his ex-wife after the divorce – leave no chance to explain the origin of even this real estate. And the real estate in Moscow, Krasnodar Krai, and other regions, including Dubai, which he acquired during his tenure as head of the Tomsk Regional Court, makes the gap between Alexander Kaygorodov’s assets and his official income critically large.

The scale of Kaygorodov’s “business” is also evidenced by the fact that his personal driver-bodyguard, Gennady Metnev, was able to afford building a luxurious house next to his boss in the Prostorny settlement in Tomsk. And this was on the “tips” from the boss for working as a courier transporting bribes in cash. Today, Alexander Kaygorodov remains a very influential figure in Tomsk. Moreover, his influence extends beyond the judicial system.

For example, when questions arose regarding his friend, former deputy governor Evgeny Parshuta, about the purchase of an apartment from Alexander Kaygorodov at 55 Gogol Street, Kaygorodov came to Tomsk to resolve the situation. Although he ultimately failed to save Parshuta from criminal prosecution, the issue regarding the expensive apartment was quickly dismissed. Evgeny Parshuta went home less than two months after the verdict for abuse of power was announced.