The Ochakiv City-District Court of Mykolaiv Oblast has officially closed criminal proceedings against Denys Mezenko, the First Deputy Head of the Southern Interregional Directorate of the State Labor Service and former head of the Berezanka District State Administration. The former official was accused of financial malpractice regarding his severance pay upon dismissal, but he avoided criminal liability due to the expiration of the statutory limitation period.
The incident unfolded in the spring of 2021 amid a large-scale nationwide reorganization of district state administrations. While serving as the head of the Berezanka District State Administration in Mykolaiv Oblast, Denys Mezenko received official notification of his impending dismissal in accordance with a decree issued by the President of Ukraine.
According to pre-trial investigators, however, the dismissal procedure was accompanied by financial abuses. Investigators established that the official personally prepared and signed an administrative order containing altered and inaccurate information regarding the legal grounds for his termination.
Due to the distorted data entered into the documentation, the accounting department recalculated the severance package. Instead of the standard single month’s salary mandated by law for such dismissals, the former official was erroneously credited with a payout equivalent to six monthly salaries.
Case files indicate that the total amount of funds unlawfully acquired from the state budget reached 121,000 hryvnias. Law enforcement agencies qualified these actions as a criminal offense directed against the interests of public service.
Law enforcement completed the investigation and forwarded the indictment to the court in late November 2021. Nevertheless, the judicial review dragged on for a prolonged period, lasting nearly five years due to various procedural factors.
In April of this year, the defendant invoked statutory provisions and submitted a formal petition to be released from liability, citing the expiration of the five-year limitation period from the date of the alleged offense. During the court hearing, the prosecutor did not object to the motion, prompting the court to issue a final ruling closing the proceedings without imposing a criminal sentence.
«The indictment in this case was sent to court back in late November 2021, and the review of the criminal proceedings lasted for nearly five years until the limitation periods fully expired,» court registry records state.