ST. PETERSBURG, March 23, (RAPSI, Kirill Chulkov) - A court in St. Petersburg sentenced banker Alexander Gitelson to 3 years in prison and fined him one million rubles (about $17,000) for embezzling public funds, his lawyer Vladimir Zakharov told RAPSI on Monday.

Gitelson and former CEO of Inkasbank Tatyana Lebedeva were charged with embezzling almost 2 billion rubles (about $33 million) that authorities of St. Petersburg deposited with the bank from May 2006 to May 2007.

Gitelson was arrested in Austria in April 2013 and extradited to Russia in December.

Prosecutors demanded four years in prison and a one-million ruble fine for the banker.

The court also awarded the authorities of St. Petersburg damages of more than 1.4 billion rubles ($23.3 million) in a civil action brought against Gitelson.