Former UA engineering professor Simon Ang pleads guilty to lying to FBI agent about patents in China – Arkansas Times

Simon Ang, a former University of Arkansas electrical engineering professor indicted in 2020 for 44 counts of wire and passport fraud, pleaded guilty today in federal court in Fayetteville to a single count of making a false statement to an FBI agent.

The original charges concerned his alleged failure to report to the university and government agencies his financial and other ties to companies and institutions in China. The Justice Department said the case was representative of Chinas efforts to obtain U.S. technology through research and academic collaborations.

Heres the plea agreement.

He pleaded guilty to making a false statement to an FBI agent in May 2020 in return for dropping of all other charges. The government said an appropriate sentence would be for one year and a day in prison and a $5,500 fine. The agreement must be approved by federal Judge Timothy Brooks before it is implemented.

Ang taught at UA-Fayetteville for almost 32 years and was director of the High Density Electronics Center. While at UA, he also worked for companies in China and received awards there. The agreements says he did not disclose these awards or 24 patents hed been awarded in China to UA, as its policies required.

During his interview with FBI agent Jonathan Willett, Ang was asked if hed be listed on patents in China. According to the plea agreement, Ang responded: Yeah, I am not the inventor. I dont even know what that is. This statement was material to the FBIs investigation of Ang and others, the agreement says. The charge carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Heres the Justice Department release on the case.

NOTE CLARIFICATION: The original headline characterized Angs plea as being related to nondisclosure of China ties, to which Angs attorney objected. The charge to which he pleaded strictly relates to his statement to an FBI agent about patents for inventions in China. As the Justice Department put it in a news release headline, he lied to the agent about patents in China. The release said he made false statement to the FBI about the existence of patents for his inventions in the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), which included his admission that he failed to disclose a conflict of interest to the university.

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Former UA engineering professor Simon Ang pleads guilty to lying to FBI agent about patents in China - Arkansas Times

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