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| A Chinese professor admits to lying in a case about Huawei |
Last Friday, US prosecutors charged a Chinese university doctor with helping Chinese company Huawei steal US technology. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
After the attorney general decided not to pursue more serious charges, doctors at Chinese universities are expected to be allowed to return to China.
University Ph.D. (Bo Mao) is accused of plotting to defraud CNEX's lab in Silicon Valley and faces up to 20 years in prison after his August 2019 arrest.
Mao pleaded guilty to a (lesser charge) lie before US District Court Judge Pamela Chen in Brooklyn.
He is expected to receive a life sentence and leave the United States on December 16.
Initially, Mao Zedong was accused of entering into a contract with a limited liability company to use its circuit boards in scientific research and sharing proprietary information with a Chinese company.
In the description, the first company is CNEX and the second one is Huawei.
Mao Zedong admitted during the hearing that he told the FBI agents that he did not know that anyone at the University of Texas had printed circuit boards, but would seek contact if he gave false testimony.
Attorney General Sarah Evans told the judge: Mao lies hiding his efforts to use the technology for an unknown company (but Huawei).
Mao Zedong was arrested after the US Justice Department suppressed the Chinese government's influence over universities suspected of spying on intellectual property rights and stealing them.
The arrest also came before federal prosecutors in Brooklyn added trade secret theft to Huawei's 2018 indictment.
The case against Huawei is pending in Brooklyn, and the company and its CFO Meng Wanzhou were accused in 2018 of misleading the bank about its activities in Iran.
The added fee in February included the theft of CNEX trade secrets. Huawei said he was neither guilty nor guilty.
In a civil lawsuit in Texas last year, a jury ruled that Huawei had hijacked CNEX secrets but offered no compensation.