Judge Artem Ustinov of the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow sent the creator of “wish marathons”, blogger Elena Blinovskaya, to a pre-trial detention center until April 26. A Mediazona correspondent reports this from the courtroom.
Blinovskaya was taken into custody in the courtroom. The blogger is accused of evading the payment of 918 million rubles in taxes and money laundering (part 2 of article 198, paragraph “b” of part 4 of article 174.1 of the Criminal Code). Initially, she was given house arrest as a preventive measure, but today it became known that the Investigative Committee demanded that she be placed in custody.
The reason for this was “repeated violations” of the preventive measure. As the investigator reported at the meeting, on December 23, Blinovskaya, “cynically disregarding” the court’s prohibitions, held a “New Year’s party,” which was reported in the media. Among the guests was Victoria Asmolova, a witness in her criminal case.
Blinovskaya’s lawyer Natalya Salnikova objected to the arrest: “One gets the impression that the task of the investigation is not to find the truth in the case, but that there really probably are excesses in the actions of certain individuals… everyone knows about the naked party. But don’t compare!”
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The fact that a criminal case had been opened against the creator of “wish marathons” became known in April 2023. Then searches were carried out at the blogger’s home and office.
The investigator, who spoke at the meeting to tighten the preventive measure, added that Blinovskaya was brought new charges, and a tax examination is also being carried out in the case. According to him, the blogger partially admitted guilt, but at the same time she “shows insincerity.”
Blinovskaya herself calls herself a “motivational speaker.” She started running a business in 2015, selling “wish map” “marathons.” Blinovskaya also had her own television show on the TV-3 channel, which was established by the mayor’s office of St. Petersburg and later bought by Gazprom Media. The state “Cinema Fund” irrevocably allocated 25 million rubles for a film about “marathons of desires”, one of the producers of which was Blinovskaya.