Ligiane Marinho de Ávila, former employee of Funcamp, works as a cleaner in Europe Ligiane Marinho de Ávila/Personal archive The Court of Justice of São Paulo (TJSP) acquitted the former employee of the Unicamp Development Foundation (Funcamp) Ligiane Marinho de Ávila of the crime of money laundering, but maintained the conviction for embezzlement of resources intended for scientific research financed by the Research Support Foundation of the State of São Paulo Paulo (Fapesp). The decision was taken this Wednesday (23) by the 2nd Chamber of Criminal Law, during the trial of appeals presented by the defense and the Public Ministry. The former server had been convicted in March of this year. ? With the acquittal of the money laundering charge, Ligiane's sentence was reduced from 10 years and 6 months to 5 years and 6 months in prison. The former servant, who is on the run in Europe, will not be able to appeal freely. Despite the reduction, the judges continued to serve the sentence under an initial closed regime. The court also confirmed the obligation to return R$4,265,443.97 to Fapesp's coffers, an amount that must be monetarily adjusted. ? Click here to follow the g1 Campinas channel on WhatsApp In the same session, the TJSP rejected an appeal from the Public Ministry that requested an increase in the sentence. The Prosecutor's Office argued that the deviations identified in different projects should be considered separate crimes. The court, however, maintained the understanding that there was a continued crime, because Ligiane used the same method to commit fraud over the years. g1 asked the Public Ministry for a position on the decision, but received no response until the publication of this report. Ligiane's lawyer, Rafael Azevedo, informed that the defense team will continue to use the appropriate appeals to seek a new reduction in sentence and prison regime that they consider appropriate, according to rights and legal grounds yet to be presented. The defense also said that Ligiane is working outside the country and that they have no information on when she will return. "Considering that there is an appeal and the possibility of changing the regime to a more lenient one, the defense understands that the arrest warrant is unnecessary," said Azevedo. Why was the sentence reduced? When analyzing the case, the judges understood that the measures adopted by Ligiane after the diversions did not constitute an independent crime of money laundering. According to the rapporteur, judge Alex Zilenovski, the creation of a micro-company and the issuance of false invoices were intended to try to justify expenses and regularize accounts for amounts already diverted. According to this understanding, the maneuvers were considered an offshoot of the main crime, embezzlement, and not an independent attempt to hide the origin of the illegally obtained money. How the scheme worked Former Unicamp employee suspected of embezzling funds details scheme in testimony Ligiane worked at the Secretariat of Institutional Support for Researchers (Saip), a structure created to assist Unicamp researchers in managing resources allocated to scientific projects. According to the investigation, teachers gave her bank cards and passwords for accounts linked to Fapesp financing to facilitate the financial management of the projects. With access to the accounts, she would have: made transfers to accounts owned by her; sent funds to a company registered in your name; issued invoices for services that were not provided; falsified receipts and signatures to report to the development foundation. The investigations showed losses close to R$5 million. The case affected dozens of researchers at the university. Some had projects blocked and had to provide clarifications to Fapesp after irregularities were identified. Life of luxury and escape abroad Ex-servant accused of embezzling funds from Unicamp is in the United Kingdom, says PF According to investigations, the embezzled money financed a standard of living incompatible with the former employee's income. Witnesses reported the purchase of property in a valued area of ??Campinas, frequent purchase of vehicles and international travel. After the discovery of the fraud and the dismissal for just cause from Funcamp, Ligiane left Brazil and was located in the United Kingdom. The court ordered preventive detention and began the process of international cooperation to facilitate the extradition of the former employee. In May last year, Ligiane was included on Interpol's wanted list. By keeping the regime closed, the TJSP considered that the escape demonstrated an attempt to avoid the application of criminal law. Aerial image of the Unicamp campus in Campinas Reproduction/EPTV VIDEOS: everything about Campinas and the region See more news about the region on g1 Campinas