Ukraine: a woman who told an elderly stranger a curse had been laid on her and charged for removal rituals across a series of meetings was fined 850 hryvnia, having taken 15,097

Proceedings

1. 2021-07-19 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Bila Tserkva City District Court, Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine (Білоцерківський міськрайонний суд Київської області). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ОСОБА_6, was convicted of fraud under part 1 of article 190 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine and fined fifty tax-free minimum incomes, being 850 hryvnia. The court found that on 20 March 2020 she approached the victim in the street in Bila Tserkva and introduced herself as a person who could 'remove a curse' by divination and by performing certain rituals; that, 'taking advantage of the trusting features of her character' and 'reliably understanding that the latter was a person of advanced age', she told the victim a curse had been laid on her; and that she persuaded her to meet the following day for a curse-removal ritual. At that meeting she told the victim that removing the curse would require several meetings for manipulations and prayer, each of which had to be paid for, and took 500 hryvnia under that pretext. The judgment records a continuing course of conduct covered by a single intent, with further sums including 1,000, 4,000, 5,447, 1,000, 1,000, 500 and 450 hryvnia, amounting to 15,097 hryvnia in total. The judgment took legal effect on 19 August 2021.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• an approach in the street to a stranger the court found to be elderly and trusting by nature
• the assertion that a curse had been laid on the victim
• a requirement that removal take several meetings involving manipulations and prayer, each to be paid for
• escalating payments across those meetings