Irena K., an employee of the accused, has also been charged with helping him commit and conceal his offenses. Ireneusz S. had been a court bailiff at the District Court in Zgorzelec since 2013. In January 2016, he was suspended because criminal proceedings were pending against him for abuse of authority in connection with one of the proceedings he was conducting. At that time, the President of the Court of Appeal in Wrocław appointed another bailiff to act as a substitute and run his office.
From the moment of his suspension, Ireneusz S. took actions intended to keep the office operating, allowing him to continue conducting business activity, in connection with which he could generate costs and incur liabilities while pretending to continue performing his official duties. The office operated thanks to the work of the substitute bailiff and the employees, while he himself tried to interfere with their work in order to conceal mistakes he had made in various cases, changing the substitute’s instructions.
For this purpose, he instructed his employees to conceal the files of cases handled by the office and to restrict his substitute’s access to information about the office’s activities, including by withholding the office’s seals and keys. Ireneusz S. removed two hard drives from the office server, preventing the identification of the parties to registered proceedings, their number and the settlements made. He also took financial documents and the round seal, persuading employees of the office to help him in this regard.
Despite the duties being performed by the appointed substitute, Ireneusz S. tried to discredit her in various ways and make the task more difficult. Because her access to the system and to the files themselves—which were hidden from her—was restricted, the person appointed as the bailiff’s substitute did not have a full understanding of the number of cases actually being handled by the office. She also did not know that Ireneusz S. had commissioned field activities, including collecting money from debtors, to a person who was not employed by the office.
The accused’s actions made it impossible to provide the parties to the proceedings with information and issue documents entitling them to receive child-support payments, as well as to distribute on time amounts paid by debtors into the office’s bank account, totaling at least PLN 40,000. In addition, Ireneusz S. misappropriated money entrusted to him that had been deposited into the account or paid by debtors at the office, totaling at least PLN 10,000.
Because his substitute wanted to resign, he threatened her with unspecified consequences, suggesting that she had committed offenses for which she would be held responsible. Then, together with his employee Irena K., he attempted to initiate criminal and disciplinary proceedings against the substitute by jointly creating a document falsely certifying that she had received the keys and access codes to the bailiff’s office premises. In addition, Ireneusz S. falsely accused the person replacing him of committing offenses involving abuse of authority.
The offenses described above were committed between March 2016 and October 5, 2017, when Ireneusz S. was detained and then, at the prosecutor’s request, placed in temporary custody for two months, after which the Court released the suspect from custody. The District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra then applied non-custodial preventive measures against him, including property bail. Irena K. was placed under police supervision.
The investigation conducted by the District Prosecutor’s Office in Jelenia Góra provided grounds for bringing five charges against Ireneusz S. and an additional two offenses against his employee, Irena K.
Ireneusz S. and Irena K. did not admit to the charges against them. Neither accused person had previously been convicted.
Ireneusz S. faces up to 10 years in prison for the alleged offenses. The acts charged against Irena K. carry the same maximum penalty.