MOSCOW, September 5 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling on parole of the former Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Pirumov in a 100-million-ruble embezzlement ($1.5 million) case, a RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

On August 8, Moscow’s Preobrazhensky District Court granted a petition for parole filed by Pirumov sentenced to 3 years in prison for embezzlement during restoration of cultural objects.

The Culture Ministry did not object to the defendant’s early release as he had paid damages in full.

In October 2017, the Dorogomilovsky District Court of Moscow found Pirumov guilty of stealing more than 100 million rubles and sentenced him to 1.5 years in a penal colony. The court took into consideration the time Pirumov spent in detention and freed him in the courtroom. Prosecutors repeatedly appealed against the sentence. In December, the Moscow City Court imposed a 1-million-ruble (about $15,000) on ex-official and deprived him of the second-class medal of the Order of Merit for the Motherland. In January, his punishment was toughened up to 3 years behind bars.

Currently, Pirumov is a defendant in a new embezzlement case. He also stands charged with organizing a criminal network with the use of job position.

Investigators believe that Pirumov, head of Rospan company Nikita Kolesnikov Kolesnikov, wanted ex-director of the Culture Ministry’s department of property management and investment policy Boris Mazo and their accomplices have stolen at least 450 million rubles (about $7 million) allocated for the construction of the Hermitage Museum’s buildings. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Pirumov was relieved of his post in December 2016 on an order Chairman of the Russian Government Dmitry Medvedev.