WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th May, 2021) Ohio professor Song Guo Zheng has been sentenced to three years and one month in prison for making misleading statements on multi-million grant applications in an effort to conceal his ties to China while benefitting that country with US research in the areas of rheumatology and immunology, the Justice Department said on Friday.
"An Ohio man and rheumatology professor and researcher with strong ties to China was sentenced to 37 months in prison for making false statements to Federal authorities as part of an immunology research fraud scheme," the Justice Department said in a release.
As part of his sentence, Zheng was also ordered to pay more than $3.4 million in restitution to the National Institute of Health (NIH) and approximately $413,000 to the Ohio State University," the release said.
"Zheng pleaded guilty last November and admitted he lied on applications in order to use approximately $4.1 million in grants from NIH to develop China's expertise in the areas of rheumatology and immunology," the release said.
The Justice Department said in the release that Zheng made materially false and misleading statements on NIH grant applications in order to hide his participation in Chinese Talent Plans and his affiliation and collaboration with a Chinese state university.
Since 2013, Zheng was benefiting China by using research conducted in the United States while failing to disclose his foreign commitments to his US employers and NIH, the release said.
The Chinese Talent Plan is a program established by the Chinese government to recruit researchers with knowledge or access to foreign technology intellectual property, the release added.
