PETROZAVODSK, March 21 (RIA Novosti) - A resident of the northwestern Russian city of Petrozavodsk was sentenced Wednesday to a year and 11 months in prison after a court found him guilty of stealing two dozen graveyard monuments.
According to prosecutors, Nikolai Shilin, a homeless and unemployed 52-year-old, would steal stainless steel monuments from Petrozavodsk's Sulazhgor cemetery and then sell them off to metals dealers. In the period between December 2005 and May 2006, he stole 23 such monuments.
Although the defendant admitted his guilt, and there were no aggravating circumstances to his case, the court deemed it impossible to release him without punishment, if only for "ethical reasons."
Along with spending almost two years in jail, Shilin will also have to pay damages to the families of those buried beneath the monuments he destroyed.
