Prosecutors asked the court on July 11 to sentence deputy Marina Tauber to 13 years in prison for illegally funding the now-dissolved Shor Party and to issue an arrest warrant. They made this request during closing arguments at Buiucani Court. In his final plea, prosecutor Ghenadi Epure stressed that the 13-year term would run consecutively across all five charges. He also urged the court to ban Tauber from holding public, financial, or party offices for five years and to confiscate 206 million lei in the state’s favor, according to Radio Europa Libera.
One charge accuses Tauber of accepting illegal funding from an organized criminal group. Epure told the court that, as vice president of the Shor Party, Tauber arranged for the party to receive 195 million lei from Ilan Shor’s network between January 1, 2022, and May 1, 2023. He said she controlled those funds as they reached local branches—paying staff and financing anti-government protests. The money, he added, came from Russia and arrived in Moldova via couriers working for Shor’s organization.
Prosecutors also accused Tauber of taking about 9.7 million lei from Shor’s group during her mayoral campaign in Balti and then falsifying the Central Electoral Commission reports. They pointed out that she listed 750,000 lei as donations from 104 individuals who never actually contributed to her campaign.
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In spring 2024—after the Chisinau Court of Appeal had already sentenced Ilan Shor in absentia to 15 years for fraud and money laundering—prosecutors filed additional charges against Tauber. At recent hearings, she led supporters in front of the Appeal Court, called judges and prosecutors “corrupt,” and demanded their resignations. Prosecutors have since merged those contempt-of-court and interference charges with her main case.
Meanwhile, Tauber’s lawyer, Sergiu Moraru, contends that investigators relied on illegallyp obtained evidence. He claims investigators initially suspected several key witnesses of transporting party funds and later reclassified their actions as minor infractions. Moraru says those witnesses received improper benefits from the prosecution.
He further argues that the evidence against Tauber mirrors exactly the documents in the case of Gagauzia Governor Evghenia Gutul—also accused of taking illicit Shor Party funds—which, in his view, shows the government is using the justice system to suppress the opposition. He noted that the Shor Party itself appeared as a legal defendant until the Constitutional Court dissolved it in early 2024. At that time, his colleagues argued that the court should end the trial and clear Tauber.
Tauber last appeared publicly on July 6 at Ilan Shor’s “Victoria” bloc congress in Moscow. In June, she attended the St. Petersburg Economic Forum.