Woo-suk Hwang’s appearance in a packed Seoul courtroom yesterday wasn’t all bad news for the notorious South Korean stem cell scientist. A judge may have rejected his appeal of an October 2009 conviction for embezzlement and illegally buying human ova, but the court also knocked his suspended sentence down 6 months to a year and a half and dismissed one embezzlement charge for lack of evidence.

Hwang, who was found to have faked data showing the cloning of human embryos and the creation of patient-specific stem cells from them, has one week to appeal the judgement to Korea’s Supreme Court, according to AP.

In October 2009, Hwang was convicted of buying human eggs in violation of the country’s bioethics law and of embezzling about US$700,000-worth of government funds. He was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence. (See Nature’s coverage of the trial here and here). Both Hwang and prosecutors, who were looking for a 4-year sentence, appealed.

Hwang is said to be running a privately-funded lab outside Seoul and making progress on cloning pigs.