The head of the Kyiv District Court of Odesa, Serhiy Chvankin, declared his wife’s company in the United States, who owns an apartment in Miami worth $310,000 or about UAH 12 million. The earnings of the judge himself and his wife, a lecturer at the Odesa Law Academy and lawyer Nelli Holubieva, do not allow for such expenses. The declaration does not indicate the costs of buying the property, nor the fact that Holubieva had any loan obligations if she bought it as a mortgage.
This is reported by Slidstvo.Info.
According to the Florida company registry, on 13 February 2023, the wife of the judge of the Kyiv District Court of Odesa, Serhiy Chvankin, opened OCEAN PROJECT 828 LLC in the United States.
Chairman of the Kyiv District Court of Odesa Serhiy Chvankin
According to the official records of Broward County, Florida, Holubieva’s company acquired a 105 sq m (1,130 sq ft) apartment at 1000 Parkview Drive, 828 Hallandale Beach on 10 March 2023. This apartment is listed as the company’s registered office.
According to Miami real estate websites, the apartment is located in a 10-storey apartment building built in 1976, a few hundred metres from the Atlantic coast. The description promises “unobstructed intracoastal views from floor-to-ceiling windows”, “heated swimming pool, BBQ area, bicycle storage, state-of-the-art gym, tennis, 24/7 security with attended lobby.”
The building is located “close to beaches, racetracks, casinos, Hollywood Promenade, marinas, Aventura shopping centre, restaurants, shops”. The apartment comes with a parking space. The description also states that the apartment is ready for rent.
Chvankin’s declaration also mentions several accounts that his wife opened in American banks. As of the time of filing the declaration (end of 2023), about $52,000 was deposited in them.
In general, Chvankin and Holubieva’s wealth does not allow them to purchase such real estate.
The apartment was purchased in March 2023. In his declaration for 2022, the head of the Kyiv District Court of Odesa indicated UAH 9.7 million in income. Of this amount, UAH 1.7 million was his salary, and UAH 0.5 million was the salary of his wife Nelli Holubieva at the Odesa Law Academy. Another UAH 2.9 million was earned by the judge’s wife as a business owner. Her main business activity is legal activities, and she also has a lawyer’s certificate. The family earned another UAH 4.6 million from interest on deposits, investments in government bonds, and the alienation of property.
At the same time, Judge Chvankin declared UAH 3 million in expenses for the purchase of government bonds and the renewal of his own vehicle fleet. His wife’s expenses are unknown. As of the end of 2022, the family had accumulated about UAH 16.4 million in cash and deposits in hryvnia, dollars, and euros. The family also keeps part of the money in Austria, where in 2022 the wife and daughter were probably granted asylum (the declaration indicates a permanent residence permit, but does not specify what kind of housing the family lived in).
Slidstvo.Info journalists called Judge Serhiy Chvankin, but he did not pick up the phone, and wrote to him on WhatsApp — he did not read the messages. His wife Nelly Holubieva blocked our phone number. We also sent a request for comment to the Kyiv District Court of Odesa, but at the time of publication of this material, we had not received a response.
Earlier, the Public Integrity Council, in its conclusion on the judge’s failure to meet the criteria of integrity and professional ethics, noted that Chvankin’s and his family’s wealth was of dubious origin, even before his career as a judge in the early 2000s. In particular, it referred to the lack of funds for the purchase of real estate by his wife’s parents and other relatives, who then transferred the property to the Chvankin- Holubieva family, the purchase of such real estate in elite residential complexes and a cottage community at clearly reduced prices, etc.
After the news about the apartment belonging to the company of Judge Chvankin’s wife was published, the judge responded to Slidstvo.Info via the court’s press service. Chvankin claims that the apartment was purchased by the company with a 30-year mortgage. And he was not obliged to declare this fact according to the law, because it is the company’s property (UPDATED 15.05 at 16:04).
