A new investigation underway to look into Meroni’s handling of Lembergs property

State Police have started a criminal case in relation to activities by the lawyer Rudolph Meroni as the custodian of the property of the former Mayor of Ventspils who has been sentenced on bribery charges, LTV reports.

The criminal case is started on property crimes charges. Riga District court ordered the State Police to consider possibilities of starting criminal proceedings following Meroni’s refusal to comply with the Court’s decision and hand over the arrested property of Aivars Lembergs to the State Agency for Security.

The court stripped Meroni of the custodianship of the property because the State Police had started a criminal case investigating possible mismanagement.

Riga District court removed Meroni as the custodian of the arrested property of Lembergs in August 2020. The judge later said that the reason for the decision to change the custodian was that the police had started proceedings against Meroni suspecting mismanagement of the porterty. The Court decided to hand the property over to the State Agency for Security. But as later correspondence revealed the agency ran into difficulties taking the property over. It was revealed that the custodian refused to hand the property over.

At the time of sentencing of Aivars Lembergs earlier this year, Riga District court made a supplementary decision: to ask the State Police to consider starting a criminal case based on Rudolph Meroni’s refusal to comply with the Court ruling. In the very likely event of an appeal in Lembergs case, this supplementary decision will also not come into effect.

Earlier Meroni had stated to the LTV that he had asked on more than one occasion the State Agency of Security to “take over the assets in an acceptable manner”, but for several months already journalist have been unsuccessful in getting in touch with him.

Two years ago the value of Aivars Lembergs property arrested within the criminal case and, in Courts opinion - liable for confiscation, was assessed at around 350 M Euros. The calculations were caried out by the Prosecutors Office and were based on information supplied to it by Rudolph Meroni, the custodian of the property - LTV programme De facto reported.

Rus.lsm.lv reported earlier that Riga District court read the shortened version of its ruling in the case against Ventspils Mayor Aivars Lembergs, his son Anrijs Lembergs and businessman Ansis Sormulis in February. Aivars Lembergs was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment, confiscation of the property and 20 000 Euros fine. Lembergs was accused of bribery, money laundering, falsification of documents and other crimes.

The property due to be confiscated - tens of offshore companies, around 50 pieces of real estate, 85 million dollars in Luxembourg and a trade centre in Ventspils.