Isabella Kirichenko, the wife of a former business partner of disgraced ex-Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, was arrested Sept. 5 on suspicion of fraud. On Sept. 2, Kirichenko was detained for questioning over the attempted sale of an apartment belonging to her husband, Petro.
Isabella Kirichenko, the wife of a former business partner of disgraced exPrime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, was arrested Sept. 5 on suspicion of fraud. On Sept. 2, Kirichenko was detained for questioning over the attempted sale of an apartment belonging to her husband, Petro.
The Ukraine-born U.S. citizen was approached around lunchtime in a restaurant by Ukrainian law enforcement, who invited her and her nephew, a Ukrainian citizen, for questioning as witnesses in a fraud case.
She was then designated a suspect and detained. Kirichenko (a.k.a. Kiritchenko) is accused of fraud and document forgery. In her late 50s and recovering from a bout with cancer, Isabella has lived in the U.S. as a citizen for almost 10 years.
She has visited Ukraine regularly and recently returned to see family and sell her husband’s apartment.
Kirichenko’s husband, Petro, was an associate of Lazarenko, who is currently in prison the U.S. for money laundering. Lazarenko is being held in the low-security prison in Terminal Island, California. Lazarenko was a close friend of the Kirichenko family and a godfather to one of their granddaughters.
But when Lazarenko was tried in the U.S., Kirichenko, who was also charged, entered into a plea bargain and became the main witness against him. Since then the Kirichenkos have lived in San Francisco.
Two Ukrainian citizens detained and then arrested along with Isabella Kirichenko are her nephew and her real estate broker.
The broker had been helping to find buyers for her husband’s property and had recently brought her an order confirming that the legal seizure of the property had been lifted. Prosecutors allege that this document is forged. Kirichenko denies any wrongdoing.
The prosecutors learned about the attempted sale of the apartment, seized by authorities since 1998, from lawmaker Volodymyr Pylypenko, who last year switched from the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko to the pro-presidential coalition in the parliament.
He and his wife were interested in buying the apartment to turn it into an office for Pylypenko’s wife. According to the lawmaker, when he learned from a notary public that an official hold had been placed on the property, he contacted the prosecutors to find out the legal status of the apartment.
Isabella Kirichenko’s lawyer Denis Bugai told the Kyiv Post that his client cannot be held in detention due to poor health. An appeal of her arrest has been made, he added.
The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv is aware of the arrest, but would not elaborate on the details.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached [email protected]
