MOSCOW, August 3 (RAPSI) — The Moscow Tverskoy District Court ruled to release rector of the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (Shaninka) Sergey Zuyev, who is a defendant in a 21-million-ruble (about $300,000) embezzlement case, from custody to wait for the trial under house arrest, the press service of the court informs RAPSI.

Earlier, the Second Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction has overturned an appeal ruling of November 9, 2021, on changing Zuyev pretiral restrictions from house arrest to detention and forwarded the case for a new consideration to the Moscow City Court.

Zuev stands charged with committing a large-scale fraud. The defendant admitted guilt and began to cooperate with the investigation.

According to investigators, in 2018, Zuyev, together with ex-Deputy Minister of Education and the former vice-president of Sberbank Marina Rakova, as well as former Deputy CEO of the Federal State Autonomous Institution "The Fund for New Forms of Education Development" Eugeny Zak, entered into a criminal conspiracy to embezzle money from the RANEPA.

In abuse of their official positions, the defendants made false employment contracts between the RANEPA and twelve employees of the Ministry of Education with the aim of their fictitious employment as part-time researchers at the Institute of Social Sciences, which is a part of RANEPA.

Investigators believe that the defendants did not actually perform any work in the educational organization nevertheless receiving salaries on the regular basis and for a long time thus causing the RANEPA damages in the amount of more than 20 million rubles (about $326,000 at the current exchange rate).