Chemistry Giant Charles Lieber Avoids Prison Time

On the morning of January 28, 2020, it was a Tuesday, and one of the world's top chemists was arrested on Harvard's campus. He was then the chair of Harvard's Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, a name often thrown around for the Nobel Prize. But by Christmas Eve the next year, he was a convicted felon. The New York Times headline on December 21, 2021, read quote, "in a Boston court, a superstar of science falls to earth."

What's his story?

From Plympton Street, this is Newstalk. I'm Frank. So today on Newstalk. Charles M. Lieber, a pioneer in nanoscience in a case that has shaped the future of US-China educational collaborations. My name is Miles Herszenhorn, and I am a central administration reporter for the Harvard Crimson. I'm Brandon L. Kingdollar and I'm the managing editor of The Crimson. As a junior reporter, I covered Charles Lieber's case in person at John J. Moakley Courthouse in downtown Boston. Thank you so much, Brandon, Miles for being on the show with us today. So we're talking a little bit about the Lieber sentence. Could you tell us a little bit about Lieber himself? Who is he? So Charles Lieber is a former Harvard chemistry professor, who previously served as chair of the chemistry department. And in 2017, was appointed to be a university professor. That's the highest ranking

designation you can essentially have as a Harvard faculty member, it means you can teach at any school. In the university, he was someone whose name might have been considered for a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. So could you tell us a little bit about what exactly Lieber did that got him into legal trouble? Lieber was a very prominent chemistry professor at Harvard for a very long time, ran a lab got lots of federal funding for his research. But he also had a partnership in China, and was paid by the Chinese government to open a lab in Wuhan. And so he did not disclose a lot of this information, and was arrested on Harvard's campus in January 2020. Under the Department of Justice's China initiative, which sought to essentially counter what they described as academic espionage, primarily from China. He was placed on paid leave by Harvard and charged with lying to federal investigators about taking funding from the Chinese government. I wonder if you could fill us in a little bit about the history of this trial before last one, say how did we get to where we were pre-sentencing. So throughout the course of 2020, and 2021, we saw it essentially move toward trial. So let me just give you the rundown of what Lieber was convicted of the two primary charges in this case, I guess, you would say are two counts of making false statements to the government. And first of those came in 2018. And he was receiving funding from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health investigators were looking into Leber's ties to the 1000 Talents Program, which was a Chinese government-sponsored Talent Recruitment Program, basically seeking to bring foreign scientists or use their knowledge to advance the government's goals. In 2018, investigators interviewed Lieber asking, essentially, you know, are you involved in this program? Right? What are your ties to this program and to China, he denied knowledge of the program, he denied that he was involved, the government continued to look into this. And in late 2018, Harvard received a request from the National Institutes of Health to basically conduct a review of Lieber, you know, to make sure there's no like financial conflicts of interest, essentially.

And through that, in 2019, he basically signed off on a letter that they ended up sending to the NIH, saying, like, yeah, he's not involved. But Lieber was recruited as part of that program through his work with the Wuhan University of Technology. So in the 2018 interview in the 2019 letter, those were false statements. Those two are the false statements. And it's important to note, it's not illegal or it wasn't a crime to be involved with the program. Something that Leber's attorneys, you know, made clear multiple points throughout the trial, but lying to government investigators from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health. It's illegal, and Lieber himself admitted to lying during that 2018 interview with Department of Defense investigators.

You know, as I said Lieber told them he wasn't involved in the 1000 Talents Program. He told the FBI in 2020, his post-arrest interview with the FBI quote, "I wasn't completely transparent by any stretch of the imagination during that interview." Obviously, not something that you necessarily want played in court. He also said related

to the other four felonies, which are tax-related offenses, two counts of not reporting income from the 1000 Talents Program in 2013, and 2014. And then two counts of not reporting a foreign bank account, which the program also provided him with. Basically, he also said that if I took the money back, and I didn't declare it that was, quote, "illegal." In the run-up to the trial, Lieber's attorneys sought to exclude evidence that proved damaging to the case. That includes probably most prominently, his post-arrest interview with the FBI. Now Lieber's attorney's argument was essentially that, hey, at the beginning of this interview with the FBI, Lieber said, quote, "I think I maybe need a lawyer."

And, you know, they didn't stop the interview at that point. They didn't give him a lawyer. He ended up just continuing to talk. And that was what his attorneys had sought to exclude. But ultimately, the judge ruled, no, they're gonna get to see that FBI interview. Again, they played that in court, right, the jurors heard that. So what were the results then of that December 2021 trial, after the jury saw the evidence? What was the verdict? Yeah, so it was a remarkably fast trial. It only lasted six days in court.

It was just before Christmas of 2021. And a jury found Lieber guilty on all counts, they only were deliberating for like a few hours, it did not take them long at all. He was convicted. And his attorneys essentially sought after that to void the conviction that they were basically citing the fact that okay, mere months after Lieber's conviction, the Biden administration, they shuttered the China initiative. Right. I mean, this was a Department of Justice Initiative that was embroiled in controversy. I mean, two other prominent cases that they brought against professors were resulted in either just charges being dropped, or in another case and acquittal, right around that same time. And so Lieber's case was a key victory for that initiative. And it was also a rarity in that it was

a case that that resulted in a conviction. It was also pretty unique in that the majority of those cases, you know, were pursued against researchers of Chinese origin. Lieber's, obviously, a white man.So So you know, but that that initiative did face allegations of people saying essentially that it was discriminatory in who it was pursuing. I mean, it was literally called the China Initiative. Right? It was completely focused on academic espionage related to China. And that meant that essentially that, you know, researchers with international ties were being pursued more than anybody else. So the trial ends, and we have a period of at least months right before we got to the sentencing from last Wednesday, what happened in the intervening months. So following Lieber's conviction in December 2021, there was this initial period, basically a few months, where Lieber was seeking, again, this conviction to be voided or like to have a new trial. But that also failed. important context for Lieber sentencing is that he was diagnosed with late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which is considered an incurable lymphoma. We learned from a sentencing memo filed by his defense that Lieber is in remission, but that usually only lasts a period of years.

And, you know, they basically are saying he's still gonna need extensive medical care and he's immunocompromised.

You know, he wore a mask throughout the trial. This was taking place during like the height of the pandemic, at like his criminal trial. So earlier this year, Lieber quietly retired from his post as a university professor at Harvard in February, and then we moved towards this sentencing hearing in April. So I wonder if you could give us a rundown of this sentencing last Wednesday to set the stage the defense was seeking no prison time for Lieber right out of concerns for his health, as long as said that Lieber may not have more than five years to live. In light of all these considerations. The government, the prosecutors in this case, asked for 90 days of prison time.

And $180,000 fine, which included restitution to the IRS ahead of his sentencing Lieber paid $33,600. That's the estimate for essentially the tax revenue lost from the income he didn't report from the 1000 Talents Program. Prosecutors are saying we still need to set an example you

We can make accommodations for his health, but he needs to serve this time in prison. And they say a quote that really sticks out to me, which is that

basically, we shouldn't be treating a professor at Harvard any differently than we treat like a janitor at Harvard. You know, saying like, actually, because of the substantial trust put in place with Lieber, due to his position, like they needed to kind of set an example of him. They needed to make sure he doesn't kind of skate off here. Lieber's attorney Mark Casey said during the sentencing hearing, that Lieber did not deserve a harsher sentence, because just the very fact that he was sitting in the chair in the courthouse being sentenced by federal judge sent a very clear message to academics, scientists or researchers, that what Liber did should not be done.

And so Lieber himself also reads a statement before the court, and this is these are his most substantial public remarks, pretty much since his conviction, he spoke, you know, very little to the press, he didn't really say anything on the record to The Crimson in the lead up to his trial. He didn't testify at his, at his had his own trial either.

But here he says he essentially apologizes to his family, his friends, and colleagues for kind of putting them through this. And he also apologizes really movingly to his late mother, who he did not get to spend time with at the end of her life because of all of this. And it was a really emotional moment. Lieber broke down in tears in court while he was reading this, and I'll quote from it here, "it brings me great sadness and tears often that I couldn't be with her as I should have at the end, as a result of my actions. Your memory is still very strong and dear to me, Mom, I will forever love you."

And, yes, the results of the sentencing then, yes, so ultimately, Lieber sentenced to one day in prison. Now, he doesn't have to go back to prison to serve this. Because, you know, after his arrest, he was already incarcerated for two days. So they're essentially saying, Okay, you're sentenced to time served. He's also going to have two years of supervised release, six months of which he'll be under house arrest, and pay a $50,000 fine. In addition to that money he paid for the taxes lost to the IRS. So as often is the case kind of a middle ground between what the defense was seeking and what the government was seeking. We didn't catch up with the Assistant US Attorney who argued for the government during the sentencing hearing on Wednesday. However, the judge's decision to give Lieber, that one day in prison, even though he didn't actually have to return to a federal or state prison to serve that day, because he had already done it after his arrest. That was symbolic. And that was very clearly a victory for the government and his defense seemed pretty satisfied with this result, as Lieber was walking out of the courthouse following the sentencing hearing. I was walking alongside Lieber and his attorney. And I asked Lieber's attorney Mark in case he has thoughts on the judge's decision.

And he essentially said, justice is served. We're happy with how it turned out. Where do we go from here? What next steps can we look to in terms of prosecuting and going after academics and scientists who are suspected of selling secrets to foreign governments? Obviously, this is still a concern for the US government. But we will not see the permanent justice prosecute these crimes under the China initiative specifically. So we'll take a different format. The sentencing itself then was sort of one,

perhaps landmark moment in the evolution of this entire Lieber case. Is it more or less case-closed? At this point? Yeah, the sentencing brought it to an end. I mean, this is a sign that's been going on for a very long time. So since Lieber was arrested on Harvard's campus, and January 2020, until April 2023, he has been facing this prosecution

trial, then waiting for his sentencing. So

in many ways, yes. Wednesday's sentencing hearing at the courthouse in Boston brought a very long case to a close. And based on the comments from lawyers, attorneys, at least, it seems like they're ready to put this behind them. So one thing that has accompanied this case is a substantial amount of national attention. This quickly became something that was beyond Lieber's trial itself. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about where the national conversation goes from here. So I think it's you can on

unequivocally say that this has made a lot of researchers cautious about collaboration with China, in particular, and just generally international collaboration. I mean, this has taken place at a new height of tension between the United States and China. Are we going to continue to see collaboration between leading scientists in the United States and China? Or are we going to see these two research communities lock themselves down or not work with each other? I think certainly, the libre trial has provided a cautionary tale. That certainly could be that this trial contributes to the increasing isolation of academic communities within China and the United States. Thank you so much, Brandon and Miles for joining us to talk through this case and its subsequent effects on the US-China research communities. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Next, nine Harvard Kennedy School students who tried to deliver an open letter directly to Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf, Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, and HKS's reckoning with mental health. My name is Asher Montgomery. I am the Harvard Kennedy School reporter for the Harvard Crimson. Thank you so much, Asher for joining us. So we're talking about Soul Keepers and mental health issues at Harvard Kennedy School today. I wonder if you could broadly talk us through the contours of the story. What are the basic details here? Yeah, so the story is about nine students, who showed up at the Elmendorf door one morning with the intent to show their faces and hand him a petition calling for better emotional well-being support at the Harvard Kennedy School. And they specifically want him to say that he is supporting this effort. And the Soul Keepers originated from a class called public narratives taught by Marshall Ganz. And it's about like public organizing and using past experiences to create social change. These students came together and found an issue that meant a lot to them. And at the Kennedy School, there's been quite a bit of talk about mental health, they just hired Jimmy Kane as a Senior Associate Director of Student Support Services, they just hired him in January. This allows students you know, to have a person on campus that they can make up 30-minute appointments with at almost any time because there are issues with camps. According to students who have tried to use their services. CAMHS stands for Counseling and Mental Health Services. They have a support line for our students who have mental health concerns, and they also have a location, Smith's Campus Center. So this should have been a high concern for students and faculty at the Kennedy School, specifically since I mean probably before too, but there was a suicide. At the Kennedy School one of the students an FBI agent named Mateo Gomez killed himself in December 2022. And so that's heightened anxiety about this issue. And so members specifically in his in his cohort, he was a MC MPA student, which is a mid career Master's in Public Administration. And these students are somewhere like 10 years into their career they come to the Harvard Kennedy School for about a year and in order to you know, get a certification and learn and take a break from their daily work lives and come to the Kennedy School. These groups are pretty tight-knit because it's a small group within the Kennedy School of older students. And so you know, this definitely, like shook up the group, the cohort, and like the the school in general. So the school hire Jimmy Kane, Senior Associate Director of Student Support Services. But essentially the Soul Keepers are saying that this is not enough. So I wonder then if CAMHS has been able to respond to students' critiques or offer comment to the send the university spokespeople sent me a summary of all of the improvements that campus has made over the course of the year and announcements that they have summarized these improvements, including timely care, which is a virtual mental well being platform like telehealth, and then also you know, improve increase like full-time staff members at camps, new trainings made available for students on a Harvard's like mental well-being site so So these kinds of tie into what the Soul Keepers were, were asking for examples of like how what they're asking for are already sort of being implemented. So there are overlaps in what the Soul Keepers are asking for and, and what CAMHS already provides. So that was their response. So they have been working. They've been making improvements, particularly since October 5, when the first announcement went out from Barbara Lewis until you know, the most recent message being February 15 going over all of these changes again, so I wonder if you could talk us through

Who? The nine students who showed up at the dean's office that morning? Just what went down? Yeah. So when I arrived, they were standing group on the second floor of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum in the Harvard Kennedy School building. They waited for a few minutes. This was around like 7:45am. And the numbers accumulated to nine. They approached Dean Elmendorf office door, and they kind of stood outside and waited and Dean Elmendorf was walking down the corridor. He saw the students they attended to talk to them, I think they were a little bit nervous. And he just kind of brushed them off and went into his office into a breakfast that he was having. So the Dean's like this breakfast with students, every I don't know how often it is. But yeah, there was like Dean's office breakfast event. And so they're kind of like, oh, okay, he just, like ignored us. I mean, I'm a little bit frustrated. And these, the Secretary Lisa Cohen, she was confused by the amount of people just standing outside. And I mean, she's like, are you here for the breakfast so they tell Lisa, they want to give Dean Elmendorf this petition, and it was in particularly Sebastian Fernandez, who is like, it's gonna take us 30 seconds, like we're gonna get, we're just gonna hand it to him. It was very important to them that they handed him the petition and they wanted to read him the petition that they worked on, the petition had three parts. The first part of the petition request that all Kennedy School syllabi and online course pages include a list of resources and information on the importance of emotional well-being. So of course sites being Canvas pages, it really emphasizing the point and offering like resource links, things like that. The second part is asking for standalone sessions on emotional well-being during summer orientation for all students, so similar to the way that you know, take drug and alcohol courses. The third part, which we're gonna get into a little bit later, is training sessions on emotional well-being for teaching fellows specifically of management leadership and decision courses, which is like a path of courses at the Harvard Kennedy School. And so that's what the petition calls for. And they wanted to you know, hand this to Dean Elmendorf. And given this little spiel, Lisa, she's like, No, you can't go in and there were discussions among students like yeah, we don't really want to be violent. So we'll just like wait outside. So after, you know, a little bit of back and forth, it's like we're going in she's like, No, like, we want to No, no, no, they decided to just wait the hour out till the dean is going to come out for breakfast and one of the students goes and grab some Dunkin Donuts. They're all wearing these stickers with little bears on them reaching for a star, and it says Soul Keeper is on it. And so there was waiting and talking amongst themselves and I talked to a few of them about why they're why this matter is important to them and talked a little bit about some classes that were particularly hard that they felt like they didn't have enough support through they talked about Mateo's death, they talked about you know the transition of like being up in your career and for 10 years and then coming out and having to self reflect and this like kind of like mid moment for them and how that can impact mental health and how they struggled with cams, and they didn't feel like they got enough support through CAMHS and how they just felt like it wasn't a big enough emphasis at the Kennedy School after a little bit, maybe like 20 minutes. Debbie Isaacson, the senior associate dean for Degree Programs and Student Affairs' Secretary arrives. And she's asking, you know, the students why this Soul Keepers why they're standing in front of the dean's office, she told the students that the best way that they were going to get their message across was by sending an email to Lisa to set up a meeting with the Elmendorf. And they were like, Well, we tried to set up a meeting with the nominee over he has responded to us. It's been three weeks. And she's like, Well, did you email him directly? Like, you have to email Lisa. And so the students are like, Oh, well, Lisa's right there in our office. So we'll just set up a meeting with her now. And she is very insistent that they need to email her. The students are confused about this because Lisa's in her office, and they just want to set up it. So Lisa comes out. And then they're both you know, they're both talking and they kind of they're trying to change track. So like actually well, Dean Elmendorf ignored your email, because that'd be Isaacson and Susan Cooper are the ones who are going to be able to deal with your problem. Suzanne Cooper is the academic dean for teaching and curriculum, and she's also a senior lecturer in public policy. So Debbie Isaacson and Suzanne Cooper are the ones who are going to be able to deal with the students issues, according to their secretaries, not Dean Elmendorf, the students. I had already met with the United accent and Suzanne Cooper. Their next step in their heads was to get Dean Elmendorf to address this issue as well. They felt like

When one student called Debbie Isaacson and Susan Cooper, the small Dean's the Dean Elmendorf is is the head of the Kennedy School, and they want it to be a priority for him. And not just for the academic dean and the Dean of Student Affairs, they are meeting in their eyes with would that be as extended and Cooper were was successful, like they were agreeing with everything they were saying, for the most part, they just felt like the urgency wasn't there. And they're about to graduate and most of them is there is a one-year degree program, they're about to graduate, they just want to see something substantial happen while they're still there. So they're meeting with the United examine Dean Cooper, who are the ones who implement changes like this, address their concerns and according to the spokesperson from the Kennedy School, they are planning on meeting with students again and are working on implementing more changes, including the third change, about having teaching fellows to take mental health emotional well being courses before becoming TFs, which the students said after, you know, they told me in an interview before this protest, that the Deans didn't seem to agree with that piece, it seemed like they didn't agree because teaching fellows are supposed to be an academic component, and not have to deal with you know, caring for students emotionally. And that mental well, well-being is seen as something that's outside of the academic course something that should be focused on by a different position, such as Jimmy Kane, who we talked about earlier, who was just hired, however, the students feel like the teaching fellows have a have a unique position in the classroom as somebody that can be trustworthy as somebody that knows what the course content is and knows what they're talking about in these courses that can be of aid to students in dealing with like mental health issues, and also just more accessible and easier for students to reach out to then you know, somebody that they don't know. So that's why this part was included in the petition. And they felt like the Dean Isaacson and Dean Cooper did not agree with this at first, but according to the spokesperson, this is something that they're actually considering now.

Thanks so much for listening. We'll take a one-week break next week, but the week after, please tune back in for our coverage of Harvard's 2023 commencement.

Newstalk is hosted by Frank S. Zhou. Our producers are Jina H. Cho and Frank Zhou. Our multimedia chairs are Joey Huang and Julian J. Giordano. Our Managing Editor is Brandon L. Kingdollar. Music in this episode comes from freesound.org. From 14, Plympton Street, this is Newstalk.