Professor convicted of hiding China employment while doing U.S.-backed research

A federal jury has convicted a former University of Kansas professor of illegally concealing his ties to the Chinese government.

Jurors on Thursday found Feng Tao, 50, guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of making false statements for not disclosing his employment with a government-affiliated university in China.

Justice Department prosecutor Adam Barry said Mr. Tao concocted “an elaborate lie” to defraud the federal government and the University of Kansas.

While employed full-time by China’s Fuzhou University as a Changing Scholar Distinguished Professor, Tao was at the same time a full-time employee of the University of Kansas where he conducted research funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Tao was required to file annual conflict of interest reports as a full-time faculty member to notify the University of Kansas of any outside employment. Tao did not seek permission from the university before entering his agreement with the Chinese government-backed university.

Tao also certified reimbursement requests associated with DOE and NSF grants in which he indicated that he had made all necessary disclosures to the federal government and the University of Kansas.

In 2018, Mr. Tao moved to China to work full-time at the Chinese university, telling University of Kansas administrators that he was in Europe, according to federal prosecutors.

Tao’s defense attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, said the professor was a prolific researcher and described his arrangement with the Chinese university as “moonlighting.” He said Tao completed all research related to the federal grants from the U.S. government and was not paid for his work with Fuzhou University.

Zeidenberg has moved to dismiss the charges.

Tao’s case was part of the Justice Department’s “China Initiative,” created in 2018 to root out espionage and trade secret theft.

He faces put to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for wire fraud, and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each program fraud count.