A biomedical professor has been sentenced to 37 months in prison for carrying out a scheme to use millions of dollars in federal grant money to advance research in China, according to the Justice Department.
Zheng Songguo, a former professor at Ohio State University (OSU), pleaded guilty in November to lying on his National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications, in order to use $4.1 million in research grants to develop the fields of rheumatology and immunology for China, the department said.
He was arrested last May in Anchorage, Alaska, as he was preparing to board a charter flight to China in an attempt to flee the United States. When taken into custody, he was carrying multiple items, including two laptops, three cell phones, several USB drives, several bars of silver, expired Chinese passports for his family, and deeds for property in China.
The judge also ordered Zheng to pay more than $3.4 million in restitution to the NIH and about $413,000 to OSU.
Related: Fauci Must Be Held to Account for His Role in Funding Wuhan Lab Research.
More: Report: Chinese paper discussed weaponization of SARS coronaviruses in 2015.