Court lowers sentence of former broker Kulcsár to five years

Budapest (MTI) – Attila Kulcsár, a former broker of K and H Equities, on Wednesday received a reduced prison sentence of five years and a fine of 5 million forints (EUR 16,200) for embezzlement and other crimes in a final ruling by the metropolitan court’s council acting in Debrecen, in eastern Hungary.

The court reduced Kulcsár’s sentence from six years and six months.

The sentences of several other persons involved in the embezzlement case were also reduced or left unchanged.

Kulcsár was at the centre of a multi-year court case which emerged in 2003 when Kulcsár was charged with embezzlement, money laundering, corruption, possessing stolen goods and serving as an accessory to crimes.

The prosecution charged Kulcsár with investing 23 billion forints (EUR 74.5m) from clients’ deposits without authorisation between 1998 and 2003. The prosecution said clients lost 8 billion forints over Kulcsár’s unlawful handling of their deposits. Some of Kulcsár’s victims were state companies and local governments, the prosecution said.

Kulcsár was first indicted in 2005. In 2008 the Budapest court sentenced Kulcsar to eight years in prison and a fine of 230 million forints in a first-instance ruling. After several appeals, the case was referred to the Budapest Court of Appeals in 2010. The court threw out the first-instance ruling and ordered a retrial.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI