Beijing King&Capital Law Firm lawyer Zhang Xiaofeng defended the case of A's alleged fraud case and obtained a not guilty verdict in the retrial of the first trial. The case lasted for three years. In the first trial, Mr. A was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment. Later, he filed an appeal, and the court of second instance ruled to set aside the original judgment and remanded for retrial. In the end, the court of first instance ruled that Mr. A was not guilty.

Declaring a demonstration project as required by the government, but was found to have defrauded the government of project funds

In this case, M Company, where A Mou works, was notified by the Development and Reform Bureau of A County to participate in the training session of the Agricultural Cleaner Production Demonstration Project organized by the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, and M Company was designated by the A County government to be the main body to implement the project. In the process of project declaration, Company M did not meet the declaration conditions in accordance with the spirit of the passed meeting due to the simultaneous existence of other subsidized projects. In order to declare and implement the project, A and another Defendant B negotiated to declare the project with Company N as the implementing body of B, but the project was specifically implemented by Company M, with the knowledge of the County Government of A. Afterwards, Company N declared the project in the training process, and Company M was designated by the County Government of A as the implementing body.

After, N company in the declaration process fictitious information, such as false increase in the business scope of the business license, to provide a false certificate of deposit and so on. The declaration of Company N was approved by the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, and the project funds were ready to be disbursed.

As the actual responsible for the implementation of the project is M company, so A county allocated the first batch of more than 5.2 million yuan of project funds to the N company project account, A will be the project funds allocated to the M company account and to be at the disposal of the use of the M company, but the M company and self-financing the same amount of funds for the construction of the project. After the project was accepted by the county government of A as well as the Provincial Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department, the government disbursed the balance of more than 2.2 million yuan according to B's repeated requests.

Based on the above facts, the Procuratorate accused A and B of adopting fictitious facts and concealing the truth to illegally take possession of the state project subsidy funds, the amount of which was particularly huge and constituted the crime of fraud.

Synthesize the evidence of the whole case and seize the defense of innocence

I. The project in question was truly implemented, and there was no illegal possession purpose on the part of A.

The construction of the production line, the purchase of production equipment and the acceptance of the multi-level government departments are sufficient to confirm that the project in question has been specifically constructed, and the project funds allocated by the government were indeed used for the implementation of the project. Although there are funds have been misappropriated, but a self-financing funds for the project construction, the state for the purpose of the project compensation has been realized, a does not have the purpose of illegal possession.

Second, there is no causal relationship between some of the false formalities involved in the declaration and the government appropriation

The project is summarized by the county government of A upward declaration, the real subject of the declaration and the main body of responsibility is the county government of A, B provincial government grants are based on the declaration of the county government of A rather than the declaration of the N company.

And, company N is responsible for the declaration of company M is specifically responsible for the implementation of the fact that the A county government know, A county has the ability to implement the project is only a company M company M is designated by the county government to declare, M company is also the only ability to implement the project subject.

Third, there are problems with the evidence of the alleged crime

Firstly, there is no evidence to prove that A and B existed a conspiracy to defraud. Secondly, there is no evidence to prove that the project in question was not implemented or was under-invested. Once again, the declaration material involved in the false increase in the scope of business and other behavior is not equivalent to fraud. Finally, the case has the problem of one-sided access to evidence and the illegality of some sources of evidence.

Outcome

At the first trial stage, the court finally adopted the defense's opinion, and found that there was no illegal possession purpose in this case, and that Company N was the subject of the declaration, but the actual implementation of the main body was Company M, and the possession of subsidies by Company M did not fall into the category of “knowing that there is no lawful basis for his possession of state property”. Moreover, there is no permanent possession of the funds allocated by the state, to avoid the return of behavior, although A misappropriation of funds allocated to the M company, but the M company also made a real investment in the project, and the investment is far more than 7.4 million yuan. The court held that the defendant could only be found to have an unlawful purpose of possession if his input was less than $7.4 million. Finally, the court held that the defendants did not have prior intent to illegally occupy state property, before obtaining the state investment funds, the main body of the declaration is the county government of A, the implementation of the main body of the enterprise designated by the county government of A, A does not bribe and other illegal means to achieve the purpose of the declaration of the success of the behavior, so there is no intent to illegally occupy state property, and later re-sentenced A, B, not guilty.

Epilogue

This case lasted three years, the defense in the process of carefully reading the file, looking through a large number of government red-top documents, approved documents, minutes of meetings and a large number of other documentary evidence and transcripts, found the prosecution accusation of logical loopholes, and found evidence in favor of their own side, rewrite the story from the point of view of the defense, restore the facts, and the logic of the circumference of the court's acceptance, and finally obtained the acquittal results.

The last thing to say is that the result of acquittal can not be separated from the fair enforcement of the law and the courage to bear the collegiality of the court.