Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division John Demers said Thursday that they will hold accountable anyone who lies about their affiliations with foreign governments to gain access to U.S. taxpayer-funded grants. Pool Photo by Andrew Harnik/UPI |
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Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A university professor and medical researcher pleaded guilty on Thursday to charges linked to a fraud scheme to develop China's scientific expertise through the use of U.S. taxpayer-funded research, prosecutors said.
Song Guy Zheng, 58, of Hilliard, Ohio, pleaded guilty before Chief U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley on Thursday to having lied about his connections to the Chinese government and a Beijing-controlled university on National Institutes of Health grant applications, prosecutors said in a release.
Prosecutors said Zheng intended to transfer the research that the $4.1 million grants bought to China, where it would be used to improve the Asian nation's rheumatology and immunology expertise.
Zheng's guilty plea is the latest to come from the Justice Department's so-called China Initiative crackdown on academics and professionals who are engaged in trade secret theft, hacking and economic espionage for the Asian nation.
Prosecutors said Zheng has been a participant in a Chinese government program to recruit those with knowledge and access to foreign technology and intellectual property since 2013 and has used his U.S. research for China's benefit.
"Federal research funding is provided by the American tax payers for the benefit of American society -- not as a subsidy for the Chinese government," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers said in a statement. "The American people deserve total transparency when federal dollars are being provided for research, and we will continue to hold accountable those who choose to lie about their foreign government affiliations in an attempt to fraudulently gain access to these funds."
Agents arrested the former Ohio State University and Pennsylvania State University professor on May 22 in Alaska prior to boarding a flight for China as he was attempting to flee the United States with three large bags, one small suitcase, a briefcase with two laptops, several USB drives, several silver bars, expired Chinese passports for his family, deeds to property in China and other items, prosecutors said.
"Zheng promised China he would enhance the country's biomedical research," David M. DeVillers, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, said in a statement. "He was preparing to flee the United States after he learned that his American employer had begun an administrative process into whether or not he was complying with American taxpayer-funded grant rules."
Making false statements to the federal government is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.
Since the Justice Department launched the China Initiative in 2018, dozens of people, mostly academics, have been charged with trying to steal intellectual property for China.
According to the Justice Department, about 80% of all economic espionage prosecutions it has brought before the courts involved theft for the Chinese government.
