12/22/2021- 1:07 p.m.
Top Harvard Professor Charles Lieber Convicted for Hiding Affiliation With China
A Harvard chemistry professor was convicted on Tuesday (Dec. 21) for lying to authorities regarding his affiliation with a Chinese government educational program as well as failing to report income he made from a Chinese university.
Charles Lieber, chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, was convicted on two counts of making false statements to federal authorities, two counts of failing to report foreign financial accounts with the IRS and two counts of making a false tax return.
Lieber was arrested in January of 2020 on Harvard’s campus and accused of failing to disclose foreign financial conflicts of interest when he received over $15,000 in grant funding from both the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense.
According to authorities, Lieber became a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology in 2011 and was also a contractual participant of China’s Thousand Talents Plan from 2012 to 2017.
Harvard, which Lieber joined in 1991, was allegedly unaware of his work in China.
When asked about his involvement in the Thousand Talent Plan, Lieber told federal authorities that he was never asked to join the program, but said he “wasn’t sure” how the Chinese government categorized him.
According to authorities Lieber earned income from the Wuhan University of Technology during the 2013 and 2014 tax years in the form of salary.
