A married couple, both 57, were sentenced in absentia to 20 and 17 years for defrauding vulnerable people in Chisinau of their apartments. The couple didn’t appear in court to hear the conviction and have been declared fugitives from justice.

Even though the offenses took place in 2006-2016 and the case went to court in 2014, the couple were able to elude a conviction until now as the judges kept changing.

The woman was a licensed doctor and her husband pretended to be a social assistant, according to the case. They targeted mentally vulnerable and alcohol-abusing apartment owners and dispossessed them by fraud. In one of the five documented cases, an elderly victim died seven days after leaving a will in the fraudsters’ favor.

Two people accused of acting in complicity with the convicted couple have been cleared of guilt by the court, by the prosecution intends to appeal.

The damages are being recovered in separate civil actions.