The Oradea Court of Appeal pronounced the final verdict in the case of the three young men from Bihor accused of having subjected a woman from Oradea to extreme aggression, whom they beat, humiliated and abandoned her completely naked in front of her mother’s house, in the town of Măgești. Although the facts were considered particularly serious, the court decided to sentence them to suspended sentences.
The court of judicial control rejected as unfounded the appeals made both by the Military Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Cluj Military Court and by the defendants, appreciating that the decision of the Bihor Court was “legal and justified“However, the judges decided to increase the moral damages awarded to the victim, from 20,000 euros to 50,000 euros. The decision handed down on Thursday is final, reports the publication Bihoreanul.
The facts, committed in October 2021
The file concerns a shocking act that took place on October 8, 2021. The three aggressors – Cătălin Butuc, the son of a policewoman and the former head of the Bihor Passport Service, Florian Butuc, at that time a firefighter in the ISU Crișana, as well as the Andrada and Florin Costa brothers, the children of the former mayor of the Măgești commune, Gavril Costa, decided to “punish” a woman they suspected of having an affair with their father.
The victim, an accountant at the Costa family company in Ortiteag, was called to the headquarters under the pretext of calculating salaries. Once there, she was beaten with fists, legs and a telescopic cane, tied by the hands and feet, cut with scissors and shaved with clippers, including her eyebrows. The attackers stripped her completely, verbally and physically humiliated her, cut off her clothes, put a collar with a leash and a gag in her mouth, and then forced her into a car. In the end, the woman was abandoned completely naked at her mother’s gate, in Magesti.
The three were detained on October 9, 2021 and remanded in custody, later being placed under house arrest until February 28, 2022. Shortly after being sent to court, the court decided to end these preventive measures.
Reason for suspended sentence
After a four-year trial, the Bihor Court decided on August 2, 2025, that the defendants should not be sent to prison. The court took into account the time that had passed since the act was committed, almost four years, and the fact that, during this interval, none of them had committed any other crimes. The judge judged that all three are “integrate into society”they have no criminal record, and the risk of recidivism is low.
In the case of Andrada Costa, meanwhile married to Cătălin Butuc, the court also took into account the family situation, emphasizing that she gave birth to and has a small child with health problems, and the imprisonment of the parents would seriously complicate his care.
As a result, all three received suspended sentences of 2 years and 4 months in prison, the obligation to perform 100 days of community service and to participate in social reintegration programs. Initially, the court ordered them to pay moral damages of 20,000 euros to the victim, although she had requested 200,000 euros, an amount considered too high. Later, the Court of Appeal increased the compensation to 50,000 euros.
