Deputy chief prosecutor in Ústí nad Labem Zdeněk Ovčačík charged Vladislava Marschallová last January. It is more than three quarters of a year after he was suspected of fraud of 305 thousand crowns. The funds were paid by the regional government-owned company, Regional Health, which manages eight of the largest hospitals in the region.

He worked for the company as a project manager and PR worker for four months, but according to serious indications, this was a fictitious position. At that time, he was also an advisor to Governor Schiller and vice president of the ANO movement in the region. After the scandal became public, the governor broke off cooperation with him, he resigned from his position in the movement, and the police began working on the case.

However, in March this year, the Ústí District Court acquitted Marschall of the charges. During the trial, statements were made confirming his employment for the company. Prosecutors took some time after the announcement of the acquittal to consider the possibility of an appeal. However, based on the editorial findings, he decided to accept the court’s decision.

The sentence was appropriate, prosecutors said

“The decision has legal force. Legal force arises because an appeal was not filed. The defendant waived this right and the Public Prosecutor did not exercise it within the legal period,” court spokesman Ondřej Šafránek confirmed to Aktualně.cz. The ruling has been in effect since the end of June, so the case is definitively closed.

Plaintiff Ovčačík gave Judge Terez Nagy a version in which he said everything seemed clear. He gave an example, through the minutes of several meetings of vaccination officers tasked with building vaccination centers in the region at the beginning of 2021. Based on the contents of the employment contract, Marschallová was supposed to organize this process.

Based on the minutes of the meeting of regional health vaccination officers on January 11 2021, the defendant was not listed as a member of the vaccination officers at all (…), in the minutes of the officers’ meetings on January 18, January 25, February 1, February 8, February 25 and March 4 “2021 is only listed among invited guests,” he explained in the indictment.

However, during the main trial, two newly interviewed witnesses testified that Marschallová, despite the allegations in the indictment, was involved in work for Regional Health. “Therefore, it cannot be proven that the defendant did not take action that was beneficial to the victim (Regional Health). The verdict corresponds to the circumstances of the case,” prosecutor Ovčačík explained to Aktuálně.cz why he did not appeal.

“We want compensation”

Marschall was in the position of being sued without two months for two years. After a clean verdict, he has the right to seek financial compensation from the Ministry of Justice, which is responsible for the administration of justice. “We will submit a request for compensation,” Marschallová’s lawyer, Petr Vališ, confirmed to the editor. He didn’t say how much they would claim.

Former regional health board chairman Jindřich Zetek filed criminal charges regarding money against Marschallová. He discovered suspicious contracts while in office. Since his version was not confirmed in court, Vališ’s lawyer assumed that the police would begin to assume responsibility for the false accusations.

However, Ústí criminal investigators have not acted as such, according to a statement provided to the editorial office by local police spokesman Kamil Marek. Regarding this case, the police did not handle allegations of false accusations, he said. Zetka was dismissed from his post by the regional council after he drew attention to the case surrounding Marschallová.

One was acquitted, the other confessed

In addition, the court received testimony from the personnel deputy of the Regional Health Department, Vlasta Kašparová, that, paradoxically, Zetek himself encouraged Marschallová to cooperate. At his instigation, the company’s CEO, Aleš Chodacki, had to conclude two employment contracts with the governor’s advisors for a total of 112,000 kroons per month.

“I didn’t offer him the job, it never even occurred to me. I denied such versions before the police and before the court. It was clear from several meetings that it was purely the political structure of ANO,” answered Zetek. Aktualně.cz. He added that he supports the criminal charges being filed.

This case has contradictory dimensions. Although Marschall was legally acquitted by the court, director Chodacký’s opinion was otherwise. Police accused him of abusing official authority because he defrauded the Regional Health Service of money through contracts for Marschallová. And Chodacki confessed and paid restitution.

“The defendant MUDr. Aleš Chodacki (…) admitted the actions accused of him, stating that he considers the matter to be a managerial failure for which he is responsible,” reads the resolution on the conditional suspension of the prosecution, which has been edited by the editor. has shown. The board of directors fired Chodacký over the case, but he remained in a lower managerial position at the company.