A senior NASA scientist pleaded guilty Wednesday to lying about his ties to a program that encouraged researchers to develop ties with China in exchange for funding, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.
Meyyappan, 66, of Pacifica, California, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan.
Prosecutors said Meyyappan participated in the Chinese Communist government’s “Thousand Talents Program,” which recruits people familiar with foreign technology and intellectual property and serves as professors at universities in China, South Korea and Japan.
Prosecutors say Meya-Meyapan concealed this work from NASA and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and falsely told investigators during an Oct. 27 meeting that he was not a member of the Thousand Talents Program and did not hold a professorship in China.
An attorney for Maia Mayapan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Under his plea agreement, the defendant faces up to six months in prison under proposed federal guidelines at his sentencing, scheduled for June 16.
NASA, or National Aeronautics and Space Administration, oversees the U.S. civilian space program and space research. It was not immediately available for comment.
Prosecutors said Maia Mayappan joined NASA in 1996 and has been the chief scientist in charge of exploration technologies at its Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, since 2006.
As part of the Trump administration’s broader hard line against the Chinese Communist Party, the Justice Department has sought to clamp down on perceived Chinese Communist influence on U.S. academics and researchers, including through alleged espionage and intellectual property theft.
Last January, the department accused Charles Lieber, the former chairman of Harvard University’s chemistry department, of lying about his participation in the “Thousand Talents Program” and about research grants awarded to him by the Chinese Communist Party.
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