Retired Harvard chemist Charles Lieber, convicted in 2021 of hiding his ties to a Chinese talent recruitment program from the US, should get 90 days in jail, prosecutors said.
(Bloomberg) — Retired Harvard chemist Charles Lieber, convicted in 2021 of hiding his ties to a Chinese talent recruitment program from the US, should get 90 days in jail, prosecutors said.
In a sentencing recommendation filed Sunday in federal court in Boston, they said Lieber’s cancer diagnosis was “significant” and justified a sentence below federal guidelines, but that his lying to US authorities still merited jail time.
The guidelines call for a 10- to 16-month sentence. Lieber is scheduled to be sentenced on Wednesday.
Read the filing here
His crimes “were not the product of a single misguided act or one rash decision,” the government argued in its filing. Instead, the US said, they reflected “a concerted and sustained effort over a period of years to downplay his relationship” with the Wuhan University of Technology, cover up his affiliation with the recruitment program “and secretly line his own pockets.”
The prosecution was part of the Justice Department’s China Initiative, a Trump-era national security program to crack down on espionage, which was criticized as discriminating against people of Chinese descent. A 2018 report by the US National Intelligence Council called recruitment programs like Beijing’s a way to “facilitate the legal and illicit transfer of US technology, intellectual property and know-how” to China. Since then, relations between the US and China have become even more strained.
Read More: Harvard Arrest Ups the US Ante on China as Security Threat
Lieber, 64, was the chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department. He filed his own sentencing recommendation last week asking US District Judge Rya Zobel to spare him jail time, citing his ailing health and remorse over his acts.
Lieber was convicted of two counts of lying to US authorities about his role in China’s Thousand Talents Program — a recruitment pipeline designed to attract overseas researchers to further China’s scientific development — and his affiliation with the university. He also was convicted of filing a false income tax return and failing to file with the Internal Revenue Service reports of foreign bank and other financial accounts.
He was hired as a “strategic scientist” at Wuhan University and participated in its talent program from at least 2012 to 2015, according to the Justice Department. He was paid $50,000 a month and about $150,000 in living expenses and was awarded more than $1.5 million to set up a research lab at the university, the US said.
In its filing, the US recommended that the jail term be followed by 1 year of supervised release, a fine of $150,000 and restitution to the IRS of $33,600.
Lieber’s lawyer had no comment on the government’s sentencing request beyond his client’s own filing.
The case is US v. Lieber, 20-cr-10111, US District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).
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