MOSCOW, April 19 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court dismissed an appeal against an 8-year prison sentence given to ex-board chairman of Ergobank Vyacheslav Barmin for embezzling 750 million rubles (about $12 million at the current exchange rate), the court’s press service told RAPSI Friday.

Barmin was convicted and sentenced in October 2018. The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow found that on December 31, 2015, Barmin, acting as the chairman of Ergobank board, embezzled 750 million rubles located in the financial organization’s repository. Later, he used the money for his own purposes.

The defendant pleaded not guilty and said that he took money to buy real estate for Ergobank. The court, however, held that there were no documents proving his version of events. Barmin later claimed that there was no money in repository anyway while his lawyer noted that some of the evidence against him was forged and some testimonies by witnesses were also false.

In January 2016, the Central Bank of Russia revoked the license of Ergobank.