TULA, November 13 (RAPSI) - Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev sentenced to 150 hours of correctional labor for punching businessman Sergei Polonsky during the filming of an NTV talk show will begin his community service in the Tula Region within 15 days, Margarita Rimar, spokesperson of the regional department of the Federal Service for Execution of Punishment, told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.

The initial charges against Lebedev were made last September, more than a year after he punched Polonsky. The scuffle ensued after Polonsky accused Lebedev of spreading a rumor about a crack in the Moscow City skyscraper that his firm was building.

Lebedev has been accused of hooliganism and battery. He has not admitted his guilt and said the charges are unsubstantiated. Lebedev said he punched Polonsky during the filming of an NTV talk show to neutralize the latter's aggression.

On June 28, Polonsky appealed to the court to forgive Lebedev for punching him, according to a statement on his Facebook account. On July 2, Moscow's Ostankinsky District Court found Lebedev guilty of battering Polonsky and sentenced him to 150 hours of compulsory community service.

Lebedev, 53, is the co-owner of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper and the owner of The Independent. He supported a program to raise funds for opposition leader Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption project RosPil and has also made repeated claims about a persecution campaign against his businesses by the Russian government, a charge the authorities deny.

Polonsky, once one of Russia's wealthiest men, was charged in absentia in July as part of a criminal case involving the embezzlement of over 5.7 billion rubles ($173.7 million) from the participants in an up market cooperative residential construction project in Moscow. The development project has come to be known as the Kutuzovskaya Miliya case.

Russia isn't the only place where Polonsky has recently found himself in a bit of hot water. Polonsky was arrested with two Russian friends in Cambodia in December 2012 for allegedly attacking the six-person crew of a boat. The businessman was released in April, but ordered not to leave the country. In June a British tabloid newspaper reported that he was at a luxury apartment in Israel. In August, Polonsky returned to his island in Cambodia. On November 11, he was arrested in Cambodia.