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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
"Child Pornography (Possession, Manufacture, or Dissemination)" |
Sentence: |
5 months |
Years Imprisoned: |
0.33 |
Year Crime: |
2015 |
Year Convicted: |
2016 |
Year Cleared: |
2017 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Russian Federation |
County or Region of Crime: |
Sverdlovsk Oblast |
City of Crime: |
Ekaterinburg |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Yevgenia Chudnovets was wrongly convicted on November 8, 2016 of distributing pornographic material depicting a minor over the Internet in 2015. Chudnovets was a kindergarten teacher in Ekaterinburg, Russia's fourth largest city. She was sent a three second video clip that showed a naked child being mocked by staff members at a children’s camp in Kataysk, Russia. Her prosecution was based on her posting the clip on the Russian social network Vkontakte to draw police attention to the boy's treatment. Her posting of the video lead to an investigation. The camp counselor and camp head in the video were prosecuted and convicted of charges related to their conduct, and respectively sentenced to three years and six years in prison. After Chudnovets conviction for posting the video clip that alerted the police to what happened at the camp, she was sentenced to one year in prison (with six months to be served before she could be released). She was sent to serve her sentence at the women’s penal colony number six, located in the town of Nizhny Tagil, in Russia's Sverdlovsk region. Her conviction was affirmed by the Kurgan Regional Court on December 22, 2016. Although the appeals court rejected her request to commute her sentence to community service, it did accede to the prosecution's request for a compassionate reducion of her sentence to five months in prison because she had a three-year-old son. Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Anna Kuznetsova publicly denounced Chudnovets' prosecution, telling reporters: "This is a person who helped the police solve this crime." Chudnovets' appealed to Russia's Supreme Court. Chudnovets' case garnered national attention when a reporter asked Russian President Vladimir Putin about it dring a news conference in December 2016, and he promised to look into it. On February 23, 2017 Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Leonid Korzhinek admitted in his presentation to the Supreme Court there was no corpus delicti supporting she had committed a crime, and the government withdrew it's opposition to her appeal. On February 28, 2017 Russia's Supreme Court ordered the Kurgan Regional Court to review her case in light of the prosecution's new admission it couldn't prove a crime had been committed. On March 6, 2017 the Kurgan Regional Court set-aside Chudnovets conviction on the basis the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence to prove her guilt, and ordered dismissal of her case. Chudnovets was ordered immediately released after four months in custody. (Her name has also been spelled: Evgeniya Chudnovets.)" |
Conviction Caused By: |
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Innocence Proved By: |
"On March 6, 2017 the Kurgan Regional Court overturned Chudnovets on the basis the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence to prove her guilt of disseminating pornographic material. Chudnovets was ordered immediately released from custody. " |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
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Age When Released: |
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Sex: |
Female |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
"Court releases kindergarten teacher convicted for reposting child abuse video, TASS (Russian News Agency), March 6, 2017" |
Information Location 1: |
http://tass.com/society/934132 |
Information Source 2: |
"Russia’s Supreme Court requests that Chudnovets’s case for reposting child abuse video be reviewed, By Staff, www.meduza.io/en/, February 28, 2017" |
Information Location 2: |
https://meduza.io/en/news/2017/02/28/russia-s-supreme-court-has-sent-chudnovets-s-case-for-reposting-child-abuse-video-for-review |
Information Source 3: |
"Children's Ombudsman Defends Teacher Jailed for Reposting Child Abuse Clip, By Staff, The Moscow Times, November 29, 2016" |
Information Location 3: |
https://themoscowtimes.com/news/childrens-ombudsman-defends-teacher-jailed-for-reposting-child-abuse-clip-56338 |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org