Broker Attila Kulcsár in embezzlement case released after serving sentence

Attila Kulcsár, a former broker for K+H Bank who embezzled tens of billions of forints, was released from prison on Friday after serving a five-year term.

Kulcsár’s sentence was reduced in the spring from six-and-half years. However, he was either in custody or under house arrest from 2003 till 2011, which counted as 4-5 years against the sentence.

The sentence of Kulcsár was reduced on an appeal of a decision by the Municipal Court of Budapest late in 2015. The Budapest court issued its ruling in a retrial of a case that was more than a decade old.

The scandal broke in the summer of 2003 with the arrest of Kulcsár, on suspicion of embezzling, with his accomplices, as much as 46 billion forints (EUR 152m) from clients, who included state-owned companies as well as private individuals, starting in 1998.

Kulcsár was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2008 and several of his accomplices also got prison time. However, in the course of an appeal of the ruling, a retrial was ordered after it was revealed that false testimony had been given in the case.

Source: MTI