Court upholds Jakštys conviction over adolescent abuse

Kaunas Regional Court on Tuesday rejected appeals seeking to acquit former youth mentor Remigijus Jakštys of abusing one adolescent and to suspend his prison sentence, LRT reported.

The panel said the victim’s testimony was consistent and supported by other evidence collected in the case. After correcting a procedural error in the first-instance ruling, the court reduced Jakštys’s final sentence from four years and three months to three years and eight months. The ruling took effect immediately.

Jakštys may have to return to prison, where he previously served sentences in other similar cases. His lawyer, Olegas Šibkovas, told ELTA that it was not yet possible to say how much time his client would actually have to serve.

Both of Jakštys’s lawyers had appealed the Kaunas District Court ruling issued in December last year. The Kaunas Regional Prosecutor’s Office also appealed, asking the court to remove the mitigating circumstance that Jakštys had initiated compensation for part of the victims’ losses and to impose a final combined sentence of four years in prison.

Jakštys had asked the court to acquit him of abusing one minor, arguing that the conduct did not constitute a crime. Šibkovas also argued that it had not been proven that Jakštys committed the offence. The defence sought a suspended sentence for two other incidents.

Three victims were awarded a total of 8,000 euros in compensation. Jakštys had been serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence since April 2024.

According to the indictment, the alleged sexual offences against three minors took place between November 2018 and February 2020, with some committed abroad. Jakštys, who was known as a youth mentor and organiser of school trips abroad, faced charges over three criminal acts carrying penalties of a restriction of liberty, detention or up to five years in prison.

The court said Jakštys had sought to establish relationships specifically with underage victims by presenting himself as a successful and influential young person, falsely claiming to work for well-known companies, and using control and manipulation.

Jakštys recently became the first person convicted of sexual offences to receive conditional release after he and his lawyers won a case before Lithuania’s Constitutional Court.