All the accused denied any wrongdoing and were kept in detention centers, except Kristina Kruchkova, ex-Executive Director of MSSES, who gave a confession and was put under house arrest.
Meanwhile, Sergey Zuev was detained soon after heart surgery; he was several times denied transfer under house arrest despite his grave health condition.
Marina Rakova made a confession statement after 9 months in a detention center, she and Zuev offered to compensate for the alleged damage.
However, journalistic investigations tend to think that the case is actually forced by a struggle for the redistribution of a billion roubles market of school books, as well as the result of personal conflicts between Rakova and her former chief Olga Vasilieva and directors of the Prosvescheniye Publishing House [ru], the monopolist of state-funded Russian schoolbooks market.
[3] In March 2020, she took a part of her team to Sberbank and headed the Digital Educational Platforms Tribe, taking a post of Vice President.
[2] On August 3, 2021, new Acting Director General of the Additional Education for Adults and Children [ru] Foundation Yulia Ponomareva filed a police report on fraud, committed by unidentified persons in respect of 2019 contracts between AEAC and MSSES.
[5] After that, her vices Maxim Inkin and Eugene Zak were arrested, as well as Kristina Kruchkova, a former employee of AEAC and then Acting Director of MSSES.
[9] Secondly, the prosecution believed that in 2019 Rakova and her associates stole 21 mln roubles allocated for the 'Teacher of the Future' program, and faked the reports.
The quality of the expertise was assessed by the Russian Academy of Education, ruled by Rakova's former chief Olga Vasilieva.
A well-known human rights protector Alexey Fedorov, head of Russia Behind Bars, comments that even universities with impeccable reputations often find themselves in the same situation, because 'it is literally impossible to properly document everything'.
She also agreed to repay the inflicted damage[21] and gave the investigators new names, in particular, she testified against RANEPA rector Vladimir Mau.