Disgraced Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel, who in 2011 was found to have fabricated data in at least 30 published papers, will not face trial for misuse of public research funds. Instead, in a pre-trial settlement, Stapel has agreed to 120 hours community service, according to a statement (in Dutch) from the Netherlands’ public prosecutor’s office.

In the settlement, Stapel also agreed not to make a claim on 18 months of half-pay salary that he might have been entitled to contest under Dutch law, as he had said he was sick when he was suspended and fired in September 2011 by Tilburg University.

Dutch authorities opened an investigation into Stapel last October. According to Dutch newspaper NRC Handeslblad, public grants that Stapel had used for his fabricated work included some €2.2 million from the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research.

But the public prosecutor says today that there was no abuse of the grants. The funds mainly went to salaries of staff (PhD students), who did the work they were paid for – even though that work was partly based on fabricated data. “He didn’t use the money for personal enrichment – for example, to buy a car or a house,” explains a spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office. The community service settlement is appropriate, the statement concludes.

Stapel had already suffered severe consequences for his actions, which had been taken into account in the settlement, the spokesperson added; he had returned his PhD, and co-operated with the criminal investigation, and with the tri-university committee that investigated his academic fraud.

“The case is now closed,” the spokesperson says. A Dutch newspaper, NU.nl, adds that Stapel’s PhD students did not want to see the story raked over again in court.