The judge said she couldn’t believe what she was seeing: Sergey Lebedenko taking a selfie with his dog, running a leaf blower, driving his car.
The man who fleeced his rich Portland boss of $34 million had shown up to court in a wheelchair and claimed he needed to stay out of prison because he was so frail.
But there was Lebedenko in a video taking his small dog out on a stroll, bending down to pick up the dog for a selfie, using a leaf blower outside his house, pulling a recycling bin and motoring around in his white Lexus SUV. He uses a cane but gets around.
U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio played the video in court earlier this month, added more prison time to Lebedenko’s sentence and sent him to prison immediately.
Lebedenko, 54, and his wife, Galina Lebedenko, 49, had pleaded guilty in the largest heist against a single person in federal court history in Oregon.
The two – who acted as chauffeurs and general helpers -- duped publisher Win McCormack over seven years in what the judge called “a theft of sheer, unadulterated and perverse greed.”
The couple made thousands of unauthorized charges on McCormack’s American Express card for a life of luxury that included buying million-dollar homes, a partial interest in a private jet, designer goods, jewelry and more.
McCormack, 80, is publisher of The New Republic magazine and owner of Oregon’s Tin House book publishing company. He lives in Portland and New York City.
McCormack’s lawyers had a private investigator trail Lebedenko a week before the couple’s March 5 sentencing, revealing Sergey Lebedenko’s deceit.
“It is beyond question that Sergey Lebedenko lied repeatedly about the extent of his physical impairment,” Baggio said.
Lebedenko had claimed he couldn’t walk or crawl and left home only for medical appointments.
He had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes last month and was in constant pain from osteoarthritis in both hips, knees and his back, varicose veins with edema in both legs and taking a host of medications, his lawyer said.
But Baggio was having none of it.
She tacked on six months to the sentences of four years and three months that prosecutors had recommended for each of the Lebedenkos, for a total prison term of four years and nine months for each.
Though the plea agreement called for the two to voluntarily surrender at a later date, Baggio ordered them taken into custody forthwith, citing their “ongoing course of tricks and lies and misrepresentations.”
Two deputy U.S. marshals led the sobbing couple out of the downtown Portland courtroom in handcuffs.
Read the full story with the video here.
--The Oregonian Public Safety Team