A former University of Florida associate professor and researcher who is a resident of China has been indicted on allegations of fraudulently getting a $1.75 million federal grant by concealing support he got from the Chinese government.
Lin Yang, 43, is charged with six counts of wire fraud and four counts of making false statements to a U.S. agency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported in a news release Wednesday.
Other UF faculty members have come under scrutiny for possibly running afoul of disclosure requirements.
Yang reportedly created a company in China that was going to profit from his UF research funded with the National Institutes of Health grant.
“The taxpayer dollars that funded Yang’s research were intended to benefit the health and well-being of U.S. citizens,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida Lawrence Keefe said in a statement. “But our indictment alleges that Yang engaged in acts of deliberate deception so that he could also further the research goals of the Chinese Communist government and advance his own business interests.”
According to the indictment, Yang obtained the grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop an imaging tool for muscles known as “MuscleMiner.” He served as the principal investigator for the NIH grant at UF from September 2014 to July 2019.
A former University of Florida professor was indicted Wednesday on allegations of fraudulently obtaining a grant from the National Institutes of Health by concealing support from the Chinese government and a company that he founded in China, in at least the third recent federal prosecution involving an academic's ties to that country.
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“The taxpayer dollars that funded Yang’s research were intended to benefit the health and well-being of U.S. citizens, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida Lawrence Keefe said in a statement. “But our indictment alleges that Yang engaged in acts of deliberate deception so that he could also further the research goals of the Chinese Communist government and advance his own business interests.”
According to the indictment, Yang obtained the grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop an imaging tool for muscles known as “MuscleMiner.” He served as the principal investigator for the NIH grant at UF from September 2014 to July 2019.