Papageorgopoulos set for another trial?
A Thessaloniki prosecutor on Tuesday proposed that the city’s former mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos face trial in connection with nearly 1 million euros in expenses that were charged to municipal coffers in the period from 1998 to 2004.
According to the prosecutor, Leonidas Nikolopoulos, Papageorgopoulos signed several “special orders” for the expenses to be deducted from city funding.
Nikolopoulos also proposed that another six officials, including the deputy mayor, Anastasios Gerogiannis, who oversaw the municipal treasury during the period of the alleged mismanagement of funds, join Papageorgopoulos in the dock on charges of financial mismanagement and embezzlement.
Papageorgopoulos was convicted in 2013 of embezzling nearly 18 million euros in municipal funds but he secured his release last summer thanks to a law allowing convicts with disabilities who have served at least a fifth of their terms to be freed.
A misdemeanors court accepted his appeal to be freed on compassionate grounds due to heart problems.
