Harvard professor Charles Lieber, accused of lying about China ties, faces new tax charges
- Charles Lieber, former chair of Harvard’s chemistry department, is accused of failing to report income he allegedly received from Wuhan University of Technology
- The latest move by the Justice Department to prosecute researchers suspected of hiding their ties to the Chinese government and military
Federal prosecutors announced additional criminal charges on Tuesday against a Harvard University professor accused of lying to federal authorities about his financial ties to China.
The US Department of Justice said Charles Lieber, the former chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department and a prominent American scientist, had failed to report income he allegedly received from Wuhan University of Technology (WUT).
He was charged in a superseding indictment on Tuesday with two counts of making and subscribing a false income tax return, two counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts (FBAR) with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and two counts of making false statements.
Lieber, 61, was charged in June with lying to US Defence Department investigators about his relationship with WUT and for lying to Harvard about those connections, leading the university to share that false information with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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He was arrested on January 28. Last month, he entered a not-guilty plea to charges of making false statements.
Marc Mukasey, the professor’s lawyer, said in a statement on Tuesday that Lieber was innocent. “He didn’t hide anything, and he didn’t get paid as the government alleges,” Mukasey said.