Marijampolė mayor acquitted in expense receipts case as some checks “may have been mixed up”

The Lithuanian Court of Appeal heard testimony Thursday from Marijampolė Mayor Povilas Isoda, who was previously acquitted in the so-called “receipts case,” with the politician repeating his claim that errors in submitted expense documents could have occurred because he may have accidentally used another person’s payment slips, LRT reports.

During the appeal hearing, Isoda testified that while submitting receipts to the municipality for reimbursement of his council member expenses, he might have taken checks belonging to colleagues from the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) headquarters. “Some of those checks likely got left there, could have been mixed up—people took the wrong ones, took each other’s checks,” he stated. He added that the checks contained no identifying information: “Since surnames didn’t need to be written on the checks, there was no identification data on them.”

A former municipal controller, Juozas Vaičiulis, confirmed in court that when reviewing council members’ expense documents, there was no way to verify which specific payment cards had been used for transactions. “We couldn’t see who the real card owners were,” he explained, noting that the process relied on trust in the accuracy of submitted documents. If doubts arose, questions were directed to the council members, but in Isoda’s case, the documents were accepted as presented.

The prosecution, which is appealing Isoda’s acquittal, maintains that the mayor committed abuse of office, fraud, and document forgery. Prosecutor Darius Valkavičius has requested a 15,000 euro fine and a four-year ban from public service for the politician. Last August, the Kaunas Regional Court acquitted Isoda, ruling that his actions did not constitute a criminal or administrative offense.

Prosecutors allege that Isoda submitted 26 expense summaries and 11 reimbursement reports containing falsified data on phone, internet, and transport costs, fraudulently obtaining 2,479 euros from municipal funds. Investigators claim the documents included expenses that did not correspond to reality. The prosecution also highlighted that Isoda used others’ payment cards, with some fuel purchases made repeatedly within minutes on the same day.

The court has not yet issued a final ruling. Closing arguments in the appeal are expected in the next session.