MOSCOW. Aug 15 (Interfax) - The defense for Sergei Lemeshevsky, former CEO of the NPO Lavochkin research and production association charged with embezzling Roscosmos assets, has appealed his repeated arrest.
"The court has received an appeal against an August 13 ruling on taking Lemeshevsky into pretrial custody until September 19," Moscow's Babushkinsky District Court told Interfax on Wednesday.
The Moscow City Court had earlier overturned a court ruling on taking Lemeshevsky into custody and ordered that the arrest ruling be heard again by a lower court. While hearing the investigation's motion on arresting Lemeshevsky, the court found no grounds for a milder pretrial restrictive measure for Lemeshevsky and again sanctioned his arrest.
Lemeshevsky, Yekaterina Averyanova, the head of Lavochkin's legal support directorate, and Moscow lawyer Igor Tretyakov have been charged with massive fraud. Averyanova and Tretyakov have also been remanded in custody.
Investigators believe that the suspects misappropriated approximately 330 million rubles belonging to Roscosmos "by entering into fictitious contracts with the law firm Tretyakov & Partners for the provision of legal services which in reality were provided by the staff of the NPO's legal department."
Lemeshevsky denies any wrongdoing. He said he sought outside assistance because Lavochkin's in-house lawyers had lost two lawsuits filed after several dozen contracts were disrupted.
The NPO Lavochkin board of directors terminated Lemeshevsky's contract in early August. Lemeshevsky himself said in court that he was still a member of the Moscow regional Legislative Assembly.