Former judge Natalia Larina, known for handing down guilty verdicts in cases involving opposition political activists, has died in Moscow.
Russian media reports that Larina "fell out of the window of an apartment in a residential building" in southeast Moscow, where she lived. According to the circumstances of the case, it may have been a suicide.
According to journalists, Larina became a victim of phone scammers. It is claimed that they called her on behalf of the court chairman—her former superior—and informed her that money was allegedly being transferred from her accounts to finance the Ukrainian army. The scammers then told her that officers from the security services and the Russian Central Bank would contact her.
The criminals convinced the former judge to send one million rubles to a certain account. Subsequently, Larina took out a loan of another million rubles from the bank and also sent the money to the same account.
According to Larina's close friends, after realizing she had been deceived, she was deeply distressed, which "ultimately led to the tragedy." According to Kremlin media, the police found a suicide note left by Larina. She is survived by her underage daughter.
Larina, who worked as a criminal judge for over 15 years, gained notoriety after arresting artist-activist Pyotr Pavlensky in 2015, who was accused of vandalism for setting fire to the door of the FSB building. In 2006, she sentenced activists of the National Bolshevik Party to extended preventive measures in the so-called "Tagansky case." In 2011, Larina was the judge in the high-profile criminal case of Vladimir Makarov, whom she found guilty of sexual violence against his own daughter. The Moscow City Court later reclassified the case, reducing Makarov's sentence. In 2023, she retired after years of service.
