Xi Xiaoxing, a Temple University professor who had been accused of spying for China, will no longer face federal charges.
The Justice Department said Friday that it was dropping its case against the 57-year-old physicist upon becoming aware of “additional information.”
Prosecutors charged Mr. Xi with four counts of wire fraud in May after an investigation led officials to believe that the professor had been plotting to share an American company’s superconductor technology with associates in his native China. He pleaded not guilty a month later, and in August provided U.S. attorneys in with affidavits from world-renowned physicists who said the evidence against Mr. Xi had been misunderstood.
Mr. Xi, a naturalized American citizen, had initially been accused of exploiting the semiconductor research “for the benefit of third parties in China, including government entities.” But his lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, said prosecutors had failed to fully understand the emails between his client and colleagues, which actually involved a different type of technology.
“It is an extremely technical area,” Mr. Zeidenberg told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“That’s the problem. It’s very technical, and I think what happened is that certain assumptions were made that were incorrect.”
“We found what appeared to be some fundamental mistakes and misunderstandings about the science and technology involved here,” he added to the Wall Street Journal.
In a motion filed on Friday, U.S. prosecutors said “additional information came to the attention of the government” that warranted the charges being dropped.
“We were very happy to see they listened to our presentation and it apparently had an impact on them,” Mr. Zeidenberg said.
Speaking to The New York Times, however, Mr. Xi didn’t come off so delighted.
“I don’t expect them to understand everything I do,” he told the paper. “But the fact that they don’t consult with experts and then charge me? Put my family through all this? Damage my reputation? They shouldn’t do this. This is not a joke. This is not a game.”
In a statement released Saturday, Mr. Xi said he “suffered professionally, mentally, physically and financially” in the ordeal. He had resigned as chairman of Temple’s physics department after being arrested earlier this year, but remained a member of the school’s faculty throughout the investigation.
“We’re very pleased that with this matter behind him, Professor Xi can once again turn his full attention to conducting his research,” Temple spokesman Ray Betzner told the Inquirer.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia did not answer media inquiries on Friday concerning the motion. Officials in Washington, meanwhile, are reportedly still weighing whether to introduce sanctions against China in response to what authorities believe to be a persistent campaign of cyberespionage carried out on behalf of the government in Beijing.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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