After a two-week trial, Feng “Franklin” Tao was convicted on 4 of 8 charges — but a judge is reviewing the case.
Credit: Michael Rosebrock/Alamyto a Chinese university, has been found guilty of wire fraud and making false statements to the US government. On 7 April, a jury for the US District Court of Kansas found that Tao, currently on unpaid leave from KU, based in Lawrence, had committed research fraud by failing to tell his employer and federal funding agencies about an alleged faculty appointment in China.
that it was discontinuing the programme following accusations that the initiative was racially biased. The DoJ said it didn’t find evidence of radical prejudice, but acknowledged that the initiative could have been perceived as fuelling a narrative of intolerance., Tao’s attorney Peter Zeidenberg said that he hopes the verdict will be overturned.
Tao, who was first arrested in 2019, is thought to be the first scientist charged under the China Initiative. DoJ prosecutors say he planned to defraud KU and US federal agencies by accepting a position at Fuzhou University in China. Tao failed to report the alleged employment to the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation, which funded his research at KU.
Zeidenberg challenged the evidence suggesting that Tao was ever employed at Fuzhou University. The charges, he said, were minor administrative errors that had been blown out of proportion by federal investigators. He said there was no evidence that KU or anyone else was harmed. “Because it involved China, the government has turned it into a federal case,” he told the court,The defence team called only two witnesses: Tao’s wife and his pastor. Tao himself never took the stand.
“When I heard the news I was surprised, I was disappointed and I was confused about what this means for the future,” says Jenny Lee, a social scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson
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