Deputy Prosecutor General, accused of illicit enrichment, resigns
Deputy Prosecutor General Dmytro Verbytskyi has resigned at his own request on July 1, the General Prosecutor's Office reported.
Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin earlier announced that his office and the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) had launched an official investigation into Verbytskyi's assets. Verbytskyi is accused of alleged illicit enrichment.
In the comment to Interfax Ukraine, Verbytskyi said that he decided to resign as "negative information in the media about him also affects the image of the prosecutor's office."
"I am ready to continue to defend my honor and professional reputation. I am waiting for the completion of the internal investigation and the National Agency on Corruption Prevention's inspection, which should close this issue," he said.
The RFE/RL's investigative project Schemes' report alleges that Verbytskyi lives in a two-story townhouse in Kyiv, which his nephew purchased under power of attorney for a businessman registered in Odesa for six times less than the estimated market value.
An earlier RFE/RL article suggests that Verbytskyi's girlfriend, Khrystyna Ilnytska, received a new Porsche car and a three-story townhouse in the same neighborhood estimated to be worth at least 52 million hryvnias ($1,270,000).
Ilnytska's official income declarations over the last decade amounted to a little more than 360,000 hryvnias ($8,800).
The Kyiv Independent news desk
