Lyalin Vadim Mikhailovich

Biography

Vadim Lyalin is a well-known "star" lawyer, he defended the interests of many stars and athletes in court. Among his clients are footballer Roman Shirokov, rapper Roma Zhigan, Stas Kostyushkin.

2023: 5.6 years in prison in a criminal fraud case

On July 18, 2023, the Krasnogorsk City Court of the Moscow Region sentenced the former lawyer Vadim Lyalin and his accomplice Dmitry Noev under Part 4 of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on an especially large scale)^[1], said the lawyer of the co-owners of Merlion Georgy Pospelov. According to him, we are talking about receiving funds on an especially large scale through fraud from companies included in the Merlion Group of Companies: Citylink LLC, Tegrus LLC, Verisel-Trading LLC and Haskel LLC, which belonged to the clients of lawyer Georgy Pospelov.

As Georgy Pospelov said, Lyalin and Noah, by deception, convinced the CEOs of the companies included in the Merlion group to conclude agreements with the Logos law firm controlled by Lyalin for the provision of legal services, allegedly in order to prevent negative consequences for enterprises that may occur during the investigation of the case against the co-owners of Merlion (those at that time were held in a pre-trial detention center on charges of committing a particularly serious crime). From November 2020 to February 2021, the heads of the above companies paid money allegedly for legal services that no one provided them. In total, for the specified period of time, the victims paid 7.5 million rubles, after which the payments were stopped.

In April 2022, Vadim Lyalin was deprived of the status of a lawyer for three years "(photo: RIA Novosti/Alexey Maishev)"

Lyalin was also sentenced under the article on escape from arrest (part 1 of article 313 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). At the hearing, Vadim Lyalin and Dmitry Noev fully admitted their guilt in committing the crimes he was charged with and apologized to the victims, says lawyer Georgy Pospelov. They fully compensated the damage caused to the victims at the pre-trial stage.

According to the results of the trial, the court found Vadim Lyalin and Dmitry Noev guilty in full of the charges brought against them and sentenced them to imprisonment: Vadim Lyalin for a period of 5 years 6 months, and Dmitry Noev for a period of 3 years. In addition, both were fined 300,000 rubles. Both will serve their sentences in a general regime correctional colony.

The defense of Vadim Lyalin, without challenging this verdict in terms of the proof of guilt of the convict and the qualification of his actions, considered this verdict unfair due to his excessive cruelty, without taking into account the identity of the former well-known lawyer, in connection with which she brought an appeal against him. According to the defense, the court, when passing the verdict, did not take into account the contribution of Vadim Lyalin, awarded with state and departmental awards, to strengthening the rule of law and order in the Russian Federation, his merits in advocacy, participation in charity, in the military-patriotic education of young people, the provision of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of the LPR and DPR, as well as the fact that he is the only breadwinner in the family.

Defender Vadim Lyalin asks the court of second instance to change the sentence and reduce his client's punishment commensurate with what he has done, taking into account the data on his personality, state of health and family composition.

Lawyer Georgy Pospelov said that he and his principals, in turn, consider the verdict in this case against Vadim Lyalin and Dmitry Noev to be legal and reasonable, given all the circumstances of the case.

Lyalin was also a lawyer for the co-owners of Merlion when they were in jail in a criminal case on organizing an assassination attempt on the former general director of the company Vyacheslav Simonenko. Subsequently, the criminal case against them was terminated due to the absence of the event of the crimes incriminated to them, i.e. on rehabilitating their grounds.

Notes