May 13 (UPI) -- Federal authorities have arrested and charged an Arkansas college professor with fraud for failing to tell the government about ties to China when he applied for a research grant, officials said.
Prosecutors say University of Arkansas professor Simon Saw-Teong Ang applied to receive grant money from NASA to perform research but didn't disclose "close ties" to the government in Beijing and Chinese companies.
"These materially false representations to NASA and the University of Arkansas resulted in numerous wires to be sent and received that facilitated Ang's scheme to defraud," they said in a statement.
Ang was arrested by the FBI last Friday and faces as many as 20 years in prison for the wire fraud charge. He appeared in U.S. District Court in Fayetteville, Ark., on Monday.
Prosecutors say in a 19-page complaint that Ang received more than $5 million in federal funding for research projects. An investigation began when a library staffer saw an email exchange in 2018 between Ang and a Chinese researcher.
Ang previously worked at Texas Instruments in its advanced power integrated circuit development center before joining the Arkansas university in 1988. He later became the director of its High Density Electronics Center.
"Simon Ang has been suspended without pay from his responsibilities with the university and the university is actively cooperating with the federal investigation in this matter," said university spokesman John Thomas.
Ang, 63, is being held at the Washington County Detention Center.
