Court allows probe into owners of cards used in Birštonas mayor’s receipts case

The Lithuanian Court of Appeal has allowed a prosecutor and the Special Investigation Service to establish who owned 11 bank cards whose fuel receipts were submitted to the Birštonas municipality by Mayor Nijolė Dirginčienė, LRT reported.

The decision was made on Tuesday in the criminal case against Dirginčienė, which is being heard by the court in Vilnius. The Kaunas Regional Prosecutor’s Office has appealed a lower court ruling that acquitted the mayor and is seeking her conviction for embezzlement of municipal funds, fraud and document forgery.

The prosecution’s case consists of 28 counts. It alleges that Dirginčienė paid for fuel using 27 bank cards and included fuel receipts belonging to her husband, two sons, daughter-in-law, Social Democratic municipal councillor Dovilė Adamonytė and Adamonytė’s sister, who works for the municipality, among her official expenses.

According to prosecutors, 37 different discount cards were also used when purchasing fuel. The Special Investigation Service was unable to identify the owners of 11 of the bank cards during the pretrial investigation.

Prosecutor Darius Valkavičius asked the court to order that the owners be identified. He said that further investigation using a different method could establish to whom the cards had been issued.

Dirginčienė’s lawyer, Gintaras Černiauskas, opposed the request, arguing that receipts submitted to the municipality were not required to contain all identifying details and that the request would unnecessarily prolong the proceedings. Dirginčienė supported her lawyer’s position.

A three-judge panel nevertheless granted the prosecutor’s request. Judge Aiva Survilienė said identifying the card owners was important to the case and that their addresses would also need to be established so they could be summoned if identified.

The court also decided to question Dirginčienė’s husband, Jonas Dirginčius, and her daughter-in-law, Jūratė Dirginčienė, as witnesses. The husband has already testified in the case before the Kaunas Regional Court.

Dirginčienė has been charged with misappropriating more than 6,300 euros in municipal funds. She has repaid more than 5,000 euros, while the prosecutor has asked the court to order her to pay a further 678 euros that remains outstanding.

During the earlier proceedings, Dirginčienė said her husband had taken care of maintaining the family car and buying fuel, then handed the receipts to her. Fuel was paid for more than 30 times using her husband’s card.