The Prosecutor’s Office accuses all the suspects, among other things, of causing the Social Insurance Institution’s property to be disposed of disadvantageously in 2006–2012. How was this allegedly done? The president of the management board of a company conducting business activity in Polkowice, the defendant Antoni K., acting with his employee-pensioners, concluded sham contracts for specific work with people close to the defendant employees, misleading ZUS and causing an undue pension benefit to be paid.
Criminal proceedings in this case were initiated and conducted on the basis of a notification from ZUS’s Legnica branch. The Institution’s inspectors established that people employed by the Polkowice company under employment contracts, who were also receiving pension benefits, concealed their actual income from ZUS.
ZUS made the relevant calculations, indicating which retired employees of the company had exceeded the income threshold resulting in the pension benefit being suspended in whole or in part, and submitted them to the prosecutor.
Some of these contracts for specific work were not signed by the people with whom they were allegedly concluded. The contracts were signed by some of the defendants. (The matter of the forged signatures was examined by a forensic handwriting expert.) The procedure in the company was allegedly initiated by the president of the management board, who signed all the sham contracts for specific work.
The defendant Jan D. gained the most from the criminal activity – PLN 135,215.90.
Antoni K. did not plead guilty but provided explanations. Some of the other defendants pleaded guilty to the acts they were charged with; others did not.
The defendants could face up to eight years in prison.