Anna Kanigowska, who described herself as Jerzy Ż.’s “carer,” gained public attention after giving an interview to Onet in which she attacked Karol Nawrocki, now the president of Poland. TV Republika investigative journalist Marcin Dobski has established that several days ago she was remanded to a detention centre following a court judgment sentencing her to prison for fraud under Article 286 § 1 of the Polish Criminal Code. It was not her first conviction. She had previously also been convicted of document forgery.
Kanigowska’s claims became one of the main themes of the presidential election campaign. She was said to have acted as the carer of Jerzy Ż., a man whom Karol Nawrocki had been helping. She told Onet about the allegedly difficult conditions in which the former owner of the apartment had been living. In the interview, she claimed that she had been the first person to obtain the documents later used by media outlets accusing the current president of wrongdoing. It was also following her “intervention” that Jerzy was placed in a residential care home, despite his objections.
Dobski pointed to a statement issued by Gdańsk police on 15 July:
“Police officers detained a 50-year-old woman who was wanted under an order requiring her to report to prison to serve a three-year sentence for fraud. Officers established her whereabouts and went to the address in question. When they arrived, the woman was just leaving the building and was detained.”
The police refused to disclose the woman’s identity, but the journalist’s findings were confirmed by Judge Łukasz Zioła of the Gdańsk Regional Court.
“According to information provided to me by the 11th Enforcement Division of the Gdańsk-Południe District Court, the arrest and transfer described in your inquiry concerned the person named in it, namely the convicted Anna K., who was taken into custody to serve a three-year prison sentence for an offence under Article 286 § 1 of the Criminal Code. The sentence was imposed in a final judgment issued in case X K 848/22, heard by the Gdańsk-Południe District Court in Gdańsk,”
the court’s press spokesman said.
Following her detention, the woman was taken to a police station and subsequently transferred to a detention centre, where she will serve the prison sentence imposed on her.
Anna K., an informant for Onet.pl, has several criminal convictions to her name, including for fraud and the use of forged documents. As a consequence of those offences, she had previously served a prison sentence.
“When Niezależna.pl journalist Tomasz Grodecki asked the Gdańsk court about Anna K. a year ago, he received the following response: ‘The person referred to in the question has a criminal record. The earlier information stating that her convictions had been expunged was incorrect and resulted from an erroneous entry made while checking the data in the computer system,’”
Dobski recalled.