A federal jury found University of Kansas chemical engineer Franklin Tao guilty of lying to government officials about his ties to a Chinese research institution.
Tao faced eight charges of wire fraud and making false statements to U.S. government agencies in connection with research grants from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. He was found guilty of three charges of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement.
The government argued that Tao deliberately hid ties to China in reporting on the status of federal grants. Specifically, it claimed he had received funding from a Chinese government program to recruit foreign scientists and that he was being paid as a faculty member of Fuzhou University.
