诈NASA研究费 华裔教授夫妇恐判20年

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2015-11-22 03:54        世界日报 编译张玉琴、记者潘涵／综合20日电



宾州里海大学53岁华裔教授丁玉杰，被控诈骗NASA 70万合同罪名成立。 （取材自美国电气与电子工程师学会网站）


宾州理海大学华裔电机计算机工程教授丁玉杰（Yujie Ding）和妻子玉莉雅‧札托瓦（Yuliya Zotova）承包国家航空暨太空总署（NASA）经费70万美元的研究计画，却让研究生和学校研究人员做所有研发工作，被控电讯诈欺等十项罪名，联邦陪审团20日裁决，其中六项罪名成立。两人各项罪名面临最高20年刑期。

53岁的丁玉杰和41岁的札托瓦于2009年提案研发先进的感应技术，声称NASA可用以追踪气候变迁。提案表示，有物理博士学位的札托瓦将擘画指导研究计画、提供技术指导和监督在理海大学实验室的丁玉杰旗下研究生，而合约中该实验室分包的研究工作不到一半。

然而，检方指出，实际上札托瓦和丁玉杰让研究生和实验室人员做了所有研发、建造感应器以及为NASA调整感应器的工作。同时，札托瓦和丁玉杰向NASA提出的报告，却表示研发计画按照原先的提案进行。

理海大学作证表示，丁玉杰尽可能不参与ArtLight公司业务，而ArtLight正是丁玉杰和札托瓦争取到NASA合同的公司。丁玉杰告诉理海电机系代主任，ArtLight是阿肯色州一家新创公司，他只偶尔担任该公司的顾问。

理海大学研究员和研究生则作证表示，他们从未见到过札托瓦。但札托瓦作证说，由于害怕与人面对面接触，因此她未曾亲自至丁玉杰的实验室指导研究生，她是在家里进行该感应技术的研究。检方说，丁氏夫妇经网络向NASA寄出56万美元账单，他们已取得部分款项。

法官决定，两人判刑日期为明年3月2日。丁玉杰1984年毕业于吉林大学，并先后自普度大学和约翰霍普金斯大学获得硕士、博士学位。他也被母校吉林大学聘为「长白山学者」和该校特聘教授。

源济

Lehigh University professor and wife convicted of cheating NASA

Lehigh University engineering professor Yujie Ding and wife Yuliya Zotova were convicted Friday in federal court of six counts that they defrauded NASA. (THE MORNING CALL / FILE PHOTO)
Peter Hall
Of The Morning Call

PHILADELPHIA — Lehigh University engineering professor Yujie Ding and his wife, Yuliya Zotova, appeared to be talented researchers dedicated to advancing science, jurors in their federal fraud trial said.

But the Upper Saucon Township couple's commitment to a $700,000 NASA research program turned fraudulent, jurors said, when Ding and Zotova failed to tell the space agency that Zotova's role in the project had ended.

The jury Friday found Ding and Zotova guilty of six out of 10 counts of wire fraud for sending NASA fake invoices from the research company Ding owned and Zotova controlled.

After delivering the verdict in U.S. District Court, jury forewoman Sabrina Ade of Radnor Township, Delaware County, said the jury, which deliberated for more than two days, ultimately concluded Ding and Zotova were not up-front with NASA about how the research was conducted.

"There were steps missed along the way," Ade said.

Ding, 53, and Zotova, 41, showed little emotion as Ade read the verdict, pronouncing the couple not guilty of the first four charges, then guilty of the final six. Their defense attorneys, Hope Lefeber and Peter J. Scuderi of Philadelphia, did not discuss the case as they left the courtroom.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Abrams said she respected the jury's verdict, noting, "They worked very hard." She was assisted in the prosecution by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory David.

Ding and Zotova's company, ArkLight, applied in 2009 for funding through NASA's small business innovation program to research and develop a cutting-edge sensor to help track climate change. Under their proposals, Zotova was to oversee the project and supervise researchers in Ding's lab at Lehigh, where no more than half the work was to be subcontracted.

In more than five days of testimony before U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle in Philadelphia, the jury heard from NASA officials who explained the rules of the small business program and Lehigh administrators who testified that Ding concealed his ownership of ArkLight and his wife's employment with the company.

The jury also heard the testimony of a research fellow and a graduate student in Ding's laboratory in Lehigh's electrical engineering department, who said they never met Zotova.

Zotova, a Russian-born U.S. citizen with a doctorate in physics, admitted when she took the witness stand in her own defense that she had never visited the lab when the researchers were there. She said she struggled with a crippling fear of face-to-face interaction that made it difficult to go out, so she made theoretical and analytical contributions from home.

Ding and Zotova's defense attorneys stressed that in the end, NASA got the prototype single photon detector it had paid ArkLight to develop. They also noted that ArkLight paid Lehigh the most money allowed under NASA's rules, and when the cost of materials ate into ArkLight's share of the funding by more than $100,000, Ding and Zotova did not try to recover the loss.

NASA ultimately paid ArkLight $560,000, withholding the final payment when the project came under the scrutiny of the NASA inspector general's office.

A juror who identified himself only as Scott from Reading said he expected the jury to deadlock when it resumed deliberations Friday morning. It reached a consensus, however, that Ding and Zotova's fraud occurred when they filed ArkLight's proposal to conduct the second phase of the sensor project.

"I think they were just good people who didn't follow the letter of the law, at some point," he said.

The juror said the panel believed there was no scheme or intent to defraud the government — two key elements of the crime of wire fraud — until ArkLight submitted a proposal for the second round of funding. It included a description of Zotova's role identical to that in the original proposal, even though she had not followed through on the commitment to supervise researchers at Lehigh.

"They had the opportunity to report it to NASA," the juror said. "That's when they broke the law."

Ding is regarded as a preeminent scholar in nonlinear optics and quantum electronics, his supervisors from Lehigh testified. He earned his bachelor's degree in China and continued his education when he moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He holds a master's degree from Purdue University and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University, both in electrical engineering.

Lefeber cross-examined special agent Eric Saracino about his motivation for starting the investigation of ArkLight. Saracino said he began investigating the contract because it was the only one in a NASA database that appeared in an individual's name, rather than a company or university.

Although Saracino acknowledged he initially checked to determine whether the materials ArkLight was working with were protected by restrictions on the export of defense technology, he denied Lefeber's assertion he had singled out Ding for scrutiny because of his Chinese name.

After he determined the project was not covered by the export laws, Saracino said he pursued what he suspected were violations of the small business research program's regulations.

But Zotova said that when Saracino and agents from several other defense and science agencies descended on the Center Valley home where she and Ding ran ArkLight, she worried the suspicions were more serious than a problem with the research contract. Saracino told her she was "a suspect in a conspiracy against the United States government," Zotova testified.

Bartle set sentencing for Ding and Zotova for March 2. Each wire fraud conviction carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

peter.hall@mcall.com

Twitter @phall215

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