The Gagarinsky Court pronounced Lyudmila Verzhbitskaya guilty of stealing babies with a view to selling them, and ruled that she serve a five-year probation term.
According to the prosecution, Verzhbitskaya, a retired doctor, would have mothers give her their newborns as part of a bogus surrogate motherhood program and would then forge embryo transfer certificates to sell the babies on to well-to-do couples.
In 2003, she reportedly sold two baby boys into childless families in Germany and Russia, charging $20,000 for each one.
"An investigation confirmed several other instances of forging certificates on in vitro fertilization and embryo transfers to surrogate mothers," prosecutors said.
Last December, a court convicted Verzhbitskaya on document forgery charges and ruled that she pay 350,000 rubles ($12,992) in fines.
Defense lawyer Yury Zakson has been maintaining her client's innocence throughout the proceedings. "We asked that the charges be dropped for lack of evidence that Verzhbitskaya's acts constitute a crime," he said after the verdict had been pronounced, adding they may decide to appeal.
