The Supreme Court of Cassation (SC) finally acquitted the capital lawyer Ivan Ivanov, who was charged with having rented a room to a prostitute, who regularly brought her clients there, "Lex" reported.
Supreme judges Maya Tsoneva (chairman and rapporteur), Nevena Grozeva and Bonka Yankova rejected the arguments of the city court that Ivanov's act was unconstitutional, but accepted that he had done it only formally and the public danger was insignificant, which is why they left his acquittal in effect.
The case dates back to 2020, when lawyer Ivanov posted an ad for renting out a room in an apartment that he also used to store his lawyer's archive. In the spring of 2022, the regional court sentenced Ivanov to a conditional sentence of one and a half years in prison, but in October, the SGS acquitted him after accepting the accusation as unproven, and the act – for disproportionate.
After that, however, the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) overturned the verdict and returned the case to another panel of the SGS due to an incomplete analysis of evidence, stressing that there is no dispute that the room rental was proportionate. In the judgments of both instances, it was accepted as indisputable that the room was rented by a prostitute who paid a rent of 600 BGN and took clients there.
The controversial question was whether lawyer Ivanov knew what the premises were used for. However, the testimony of the woman who rented the room did not help to clarify it, because initially in the pre-trial proceedings she was questioned before a judge and admitted that she had met the lawyer personally and told him what the room was for, but then during the trial investigation denied that she had mentioned that she would take clients there and even indicated that she had sent an intermediary to sign the lease.
In the end, the court trusted the testimony of the woman from the pre-trial proceedings.