Federal prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against Chen Gang, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Chen Gang was previously accused of concealing ties to China. The government no longer believes it can prove its charges at trial, prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.
Chen Gang, who was arrested in January last year, is accused of concealing his role in China in a 2017 grant application to the U.S. Department of Energy. The Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing people familiar with the matter, that prosecutors had previously recommended that the Justice Department drop the case, based in part on witness testimony investigators obtained after Chen’s arrest.
One of them, an Energy Department official, told prosecutors in recent weeks that the DOE did not believe Chen was obligated to disclose the positions at the time, and that the department did not believe officials would withhold funds even if they knew that Chen held the positions. The Department of Energy later began asking researchers to provide more information about their foreign ties.
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