In December 2021, Lieber was convicted of six felonies, including two counts of making false statements to the FBI and investigators from the Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health regarding his participation in the Chinese government’s Thousand Talents Program, as well as four counts of filing false tax returns. The US government began its investigation of Lieber as part of the China Initiative, a program established by the Department of Justice in 2018 to investigate academic espionage at American universities.
He was basically taking IP generated by US funding and selling it to China cheap. Despite this, he was on paid leave from Harvard from 2020.
“In a taped interview, Lieber admitted to traveling from Wuhan to Boston with bags of cash containing between $50,000 and $100,000, which he said he never disclosed to the IRS.”
" He was fined and sentenced to two days in prison, followed by two years of supervised release with six months of house arrest on April 26, 2023".
So basically no punishment.
Interesting guy:
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2001)
NBIC Research Excellence Award in Nanotechnology, University of Pennsylvania (2007)
Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2012)
IEEE Nanotechnology Pioneer Award (2013)
Remsen Award (2016)
Welch Award in Chemistry (2019)
and then…
In 2020, the year of his arrest, he grew a 2,276-lb pumpkin that currently holds the record for the largest ever grown in Massachusetts
Thanks for the context. Honestly sounds like someone the US should be trying to retain, but… Yknow… The current admin are doing everything they can to funnel money away from science.
In December 2021, Lieber was convicted of six felonies, including two counts of making false statements to the FBI and investigators from the Department of Defense and National Institutes of Health regarding his participation in the Chinese government’s Thousand Talents Program, as well as four counts of filing false tax returns. The US government began its investigation of Lieber as part of the China Initiative, a program established by the Department of Justice in 2018 to investigate academic espionage at American universities.
He was basically taking IP generated by US funding and selling it to China cheap. Despite this, he was on paid leave from Harvard from 2020.
“In a taped interview, Lieber admitted to traveling from Wuhan to Boston with bags of cash containing between $50,000 and $100,000, which he said he never disclosed to the IRS.”
" He was fined and sentenced to two days in prison, followed by two years of supervised release with six months of house arrest on April 26, 2023".
So basically no punishment.
Interesting guy:
Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (2001)
NBIC Research Excellence Award in Nanotechnology, University of Pennsylvania (2007)
Wolf Prize in Chemistry (2012)
IEEE Nanotechnology Pioneer Award (2013)
Remsen Award (2016)
Welch Award in Chemistry (2019)
and then…
In 2020, the year of his arrest, he grew a 2,276-lb pumpkin that currently holds the record for the largest ever grown in Massachusetts
Thanks for the context. Honestly sounds like someone the US should be trying to retain, but… Yknow… The current admin are doing everything they can to funnel money away from science.