Ex-Harvard professor Charles Lieber convicted of lying about China ties wants to be spared jail
- Lieber’s lawyer said the academic is remorseful and that his reputation has already been ruined by his Chinese ties
- He was convicted of two counts of lying to the US government about his links with a Chinese university and Beijing’s Thousand Talents Programme
In a filing on Friday to US District Judge Rya Zobel in Boston, Lieber’s lawyer said the one-time chair of Harvard’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department is remorseful and that his reputation has already been ruined by his Chinese ties. The letter also cites Lieber’s battle with cancer, for which there is no cure.
“Travel to China – which amounted, in total, to no more than a couple of weeks – has shattered his entire life,” defence lawyer Mark Mukasey wrote. “At 64 years old, Professor Lieber prays to be able to live out whatever time he has left, at home.”
Mukasey asked the judge for one of four possible sentences, ranging from a one-year probation to a sentence of six months of home detention, to be followed by a year of supervised release.
Prosecutors have yet to provide their recommendation. Lieber is expected to be sentenced on April 26.
Lieber was convicted of two counts of lying to federal authorities about his affiliation with Wuhan University of Technology and China’s Thousand Talents Programme – a recruitment pipeline designed to attract overseas researchers to further China’s scientific development. He also was convicted of filing a false income tax return and failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts with the IRS.
