MOSCOW, October 28 (RAPSI) – Nikolai Dynkov, who was convicted of involvement in the embezzlement at Russia’s Defense ministry, has been released from a colony in the Ryazan Region, according to a representative for the Federal Penitentiary Service’s regional department.

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow in June 2014 sentenced Natalya Dynkova, a defendant in the Defense Ministry embezzlement case, to three years in penal settlement. Her son Nikolai received a two-year sentence. The court also fined them 200,000 rubles ($3,150) in all.

According to the FSIN representative, Dynkov’s prison sentence was replaced by a fine.

According to investigators, Dynkova, former head of the Defense Ministry’s 439th Central Experimental Military Cartographic Factory, signed a patently disadvantageous contract for the lease of commercial space in Moscow to StroiAlliance, a company founded by her son, Nikolai Dynkov, who then sublet the property to 56 companies. As a result of that scheme, Dynkova’s firm allegedly earned over 34 million rubles (about $535,000).

The Defense Ministry's Property Relations Department and Oboronservis holding became involved in a corruption scandal in 2012 that led to the resignation of then defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Vasilyeva.

Serdyukov was charged with negligence. Investigators claimed that his actions or inactions caused damages to the state estimated at 56 million rubles (about $854,400) by ordering army personnel to build a private road to a Caspian Sea resort owned by his brother-in-law.

However, the Russian media reported in late December 2013 that the criminal probe into Serdyukov’s actions was closed. Serdyukov's lawyer Genrikh Padva said later that his client was pardoned under an amnesty program.

On May 8, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow sentenced Yevgeniya Vasilyeva, an aide to Serdyukov, to five years in prison for her involvement in corruption cases at the Defense Ministry.

In late August, a court in the Vladimir Region released Vasilyeva on parole.