MOSCOW, October 5 (RAPSI) — The Khimki City Court has sentenced lawyer Igor Tretyakov to seven years in a penal colony in the case of embezzlement of Roscosmos funds, a RAPSI correspondent has reported from the courtroom.

Tretyakov was also fined 400,000 rubles (about $7,000 at the current exchange rate. He was detained in the courtroom, according to judge Oksana Kulbaka.

The court also sentenced ex-CEO of the S.A. Lavochkin Scientific Union Sergey Lemeshevsky and chief of the Union’s legal department Yekaterina Averyanova to 7.5 years and 6 years in a penal colony respectively. The defendants were also fined 500,000 and 300,000 rubles ($8,500 and 5,000).

According to lawyer Stanislav Shostak, who defends Tretyakov, his client spent a total of 5 years in custody and under house arrest, what equals to 5 years in prison. The defense is appealing the sentence.

A criminal case over embezzlement from a subsidiary of Roskosmos was initiated in July 2018. Investigators stated that the defendants defrauded the Roskosmos subsidiary by signing fraudulent contracts for provision of legal services with the law firm. All the works were allegedly performed by the corporation’s own specialists. The overall sum of payments to the firm reached 330 million rubles ($5.6 million).