MOSCOW, August 8 (RAPSI) – The Presnensky District Court of Moscow has recovered 247.5 million ($3.9 million) from Sergey Fedotov, ex-Director General of the Russian Authors’ Society (RAO), sentenced to 1.5 years in a penal colony for large scale fraud, the press-service of the court has told RAPSI.

The defendant has already appealed the ruling.

On December 7, the Ryazan Regional Court upheld a lower court’s ruling to grant parole for Fedotov.

Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court convicted and sentenced Fedotov, who had pleaded guilty, in June 2017. The convict was to serve 6 months in prison because the time he had spent in detention was included in the length of the punishment.

As previously reported, employees of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB) have revealed a fraud scheme over illegal alienation of RAO’s property. Damage caused to the RAO’s property has been estimated at 500 million rubles (about $8.5 million at the current exchange rate).

However, Fedotov’s defense team insisted that the damage amount reached about 297 million rubles. His lawyer Denis Baluyev also claimed that his client was a victim of calumniation.

The Russian Authors’ Society is a non-governmental organization created in 1993 for collective management of author’s rights. At this moment over 25,000 people are listed as its members.