MOSCOW, January 13 (RAPSI) - Ousted Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov, sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for corruption, has filed a request for acquittal, RIA Novosti reported on Friday.

The Yaroslavl Regional Court will deliver its ruling in the case on January 20.

In August, Urlashov has been sentenced to 12.5 years in prison for two corruption episodes.

A court accorded investigators that Urlashov along with his former assistant Aleksey Lopatin and another accomplice Maxim Pokalainen demanded 18 million rubles ($270,000) from a commercial entity director for participation in a municipal project realization between December 2012 and July 2013.

Pokalainen was found guilty of attempted bribery amounted to 18 million rubles and sentenced to five years in prison in December 2014. Lopatin received a 7-year prison sentence on this case on Wednesday. Former deputy of Urlashov Dmitry Donskov was acquitted in the case.

Moreover, Urlashov was found guilty of receiving 17 million rubles ($254,000) of the total 30 million rubles’ bribe amount ($449,000) from a Director General of Yardstroy construction company for assistance in transfer of control block of shares belonging to the City Highway Department to Yardstroy.

The criminal case against Urlashov is one of the biggest bribe cases opened in Russia recently, considering Yaroslavl’s population (600,000) and the fact that Urlashov, an opposition candidate, defeated the candidate from the ruling party at the 2012 mayoral elections.

The police arrested Urlashov on July 3, 2013.

Urlashov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in 2008-2011, was a candidate for the opposition during mayoral elections in 2012. He achieved a landslide victory over a United Russia candidate Yakov Yakushev. A member of billionaire-turned-politician Mikhail Prokhorov’s Civic Platform party, Urlashov planned to run for the Yaroslavl regional parliament in September 2013.

On July 18, 2013, Urlashov was removed from his mayoral post.