MOSCOW, December 21 (RAPSI) – Chief of the S.A. Lavochkin Scientific Union’s legal department Yekaterina Averyanova, involved in a case on embezzling 330 million rubles (about $5 million) from Roscosmos state space corporation, made a deal with investigators and pleaded partially guilty, attorney Alexey Kovrizhkin told RAPSI on Friday.

According to the lawyer, his client, officially charged with large-scale fraud, incriminated herself under detention conditions. If she did not partially admit guilt, she would not be released under house arrest, the attorney noted.

Other defendants in the case are ex-CEO of the Scientific Union Sergey Lemeshevsky and the chairman of the law firm Tretyakov & Partners Igor Tretyakov. According to investigators, the defendants have stolen assets of Roscosmos 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 (about $5 million).