Russia: a gold chain and cross taken from a stranger's neck outside a cinema, for a curse-removal rite

Proceedings

1. 2017-09-27 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Central District Court of Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia (Центральный районный суд г. Читы). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО1, was convicted of fraud by deception and abuse of trust causing significant damage to a citizen under ч.2 ст.159 of the Criminal Code. The court found that on 13 July 2017 between 14:00 and 15:00, outside the Udokan cinema on Lenin Street in Chita, she saw a gold chain with a cross on the neck of a woman she did not know and there and then formed the intent to obtain them by deception; that under the pretext of removing a curse she asked the victim to hand over the chain and cross for the performance of a rite, knowing she would not return them; and that the victim, trusting her, took them from her neck and gave them to her. The chain was valued at 8,000 roubles and the cross at 5,000, a loss of 13,000 roubles. She was sentenced to two years' deprivation of liberty; her suspended sentence under a judgment of the same court of 19 December 2016 was revoked under ч.4 ст.74 and, by partial addition of the unserved part under ст.70, a final term of three years in a general-regime correctional colony was imposed.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• an entirely opportunistic approach in a public street: the court found the intent formed on the spot, on seeing the chain and cross around the victim's neck
• the items requested «для проведения обряда» — for the performance of the rite — so that handing them over read as supplying materials rather than parting with property
• the object taken being a devotional cross the victim was wearing, which the rite's framing turned from a possession into an instrument