Neringa Venckienė (born 21 May 1971 in Kaunas) is a former Lithuanian judge and member of the Seimas of Lithuania.
In 2008–2009, Venckienė's brother Drąsius Kedys accused three men of sexually molesting his four-year old daughter. One of the men and the girl's aunt were murdered in October 2009. Kedys became the prime suspect but he was found dead in June 2010. The girl's custody was initially awarded to Venckienė. The courts later awarded the custody to the girl's mother. These court ruling caused a popular uproar in Lithuania and members of the public started a vigil guarding the house where the girl lived so that the police could not take her away. Armed riot police forcibly took away the girl on 17 May 2012. Few days later, charges were brought against Venckienė who resigned from her job as a judge. She became leader of the new The Way of Courage political party and was elected to the Seimas in the October 2012 elections. In April 2013, the Seimas voted to remove Venckienė's legal immunity and she fled to the United States seeking political asylum. In June 2014, Venckienė was impeached and her mandate was removed. In November 2019, she was extradited back to Lithuania, where she was released on bail and is tried for relative minor offenses. She was found guilty in 2021 and sentenced to 21 months in prison but released due to time already served.
Early life and education
Venckienė was born as Neringa Kedytė in Kaunas, Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1971.
In 1989, she graduated from Garliava 1st High School with high honors. From 1989 to 1995, she studied at the Law Faculty of Vilnius University. From 2005, she studied for her doctorate at Mykolas Romeris University.
From 1995 to 1999, Venckienė worked as a jurist at the Lithuanian University of Agriculture (now Aleksandras Stulginskis University). Between 1999 and 2007 she worked as a Kaunas District Court judge and served as an appeal judge at Kaunas Regional Court from 2007 to 2012.
Pedophilia case
Pedophilia and murders
Venckienė's brother Drąsius Kedys (b. 1972), and his former girlfriend, Laimutė Stankūnaitė (b. 1986) had an out-of-wedlock daughter in February 2004. The couple split up in 2006. His former girlfriend originally obtained the custody of the girl. But later gave custody to the father, stating that she could not afford to take care of the child.
On 29 November 2008, Kedys submitted a formal complaint to the police, claiming that Andrius Ūsas, an advisor to the speaker of the Parliament, paid Stankūnaitė to sexually molest his daughter. In February 2009, Kedys further pressed accusations against Violeta Naruševičienė, a sister of Stankūnaitė, claiming the former had allowed men to molest his 4-year-old daughter. In July 2009, Kedys also accused Jonas Furmanavičius, a district judge, and an unidentified individual known only as Aidas, of partaking in the molestation. All of those people (except for the unidentified Aidas) professed their innocence, and in turn accused Kedys of slander, criminal libel, and death threats.
On 5 October 2009, Furmanavičius and Naruševičienė were shot dead in Kaunas. Kedys became the prime suspect. The story caused an uproar in Lithuania, much of the public siding with Kedys: in the public mind, the case was seen as largely a father's futile attempts in pursuing justice and trying to protect his daughter, and by being driven to desperate measures by anger at the injustice. After six months of police search, Drąsius Kedys' body was found near Kaunas Reservoir on 20 April 2010. According to the official report, the cause of death was "choking on his own vomit" whilst being heavily intoxicated. However, his relatives were convinced that Kedys had been murdered, pointing to some wounds on his body, and the fact that there was no vomit found on the scene. Ūsas, the main suspect in the pedophilia case, was officially charged with sexual molestation of a minor. However, he was found dead in June 2010. According to the police, he fell off his all-terrain vehicle and drowned in 8 inches of water. The death was ruled an accident. The court case against Ūsas continued. The court found him innocent in November 2012.