Presumption of Innocence

This is the story of lawyer Boris Avrutin: cynical and rich but with a good sense of humour our hero loves to shock and provoke. He wins ‘hopeless’ cases with an easy brilliance. Local investigators finally lose patience with Avrutin when he is successful in clearing his client, the suspect in a murder case (of a policeman), of all charges, thus allowing him to walk free. The chief investigator orders a detective, Glebov, to gather compromising material on Avrutin and to discredit him. In this Glebov is aided by his lover – a scandalous criminal journalist called Vernitskaya. She pretends to be collecting material for a film about the lawyer, but in fact is carrying out her own investigation in which the chief suspect is Boris himself. In this way Vernitskaya manages to infiltrate Avrutin’s close circle. Our hero figures out her intentions, but in the process falls in love with her….and she with him.