Some industrious teenagers up in Marin have made fine use of the abandoned manse of one Pavlo Lazarenko, the imprisoned former Ukrainian prime minister who sits in a federal prison in Dublin. A caretaker for the property recently chased out a party of some 100 teens who fled into nearby woods and were not caught by police. Apparently the house was ransacked, photos of the place posted to Instagram, and a $30,000 Picasso lithograph was stolen.

Also, some electronics, silver candlesticks, and leather coats were taken. All in all, it sounds like a rad party. But the party house, alas, got busted after the incident on May 27, when the caretaker found the kids at the house and police were called in around 10 p.m.

Lazarenko bought the nine-bedroom, 19,000 s.f. home in 1998, shortly before he was arrested in Switzerland for suspicion of money laundering. He fled to the U.S., and was arrested here, and put in jail in the Bay Area because of the residence. After being convicted in 2006 for money laundering — the United Nations believes he may have looted as much as $200 million from the Ukranian government before fleeing in the mid-90s — he was sentenced to 108 months in jail, but that sentence was reduced in 2009 to 97 months, meaning he's due out in 2014. He's also wanted in the Ukraine for causing the killings/assassinations of several high-ranking officials there in the 90s.

[Marin IJ]