Pair was allegedly pocketing the money given by NASA for their startup instead of paying graduate students to do the work
From AP and web reports:
Professor, Wife Sentenced After Defrauding NASA
The duo told NASA that their startup company would develop a cutting-edge sensor used to track climate change. Instead, prosecutors alleged, they used the company to funnel money to themselves.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A university professor in Pennsylvania has been sentenced to a year and a day in prison on a conviction of defrauding NASA by letting graduate students and researchers do all the work on a $700,000 project.
U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Bartle III also ordered Yujie Ding on Wednesday to pay a fine of $3,000 and restitution of $72,000. His wife, Yuliya Zotova, was sentenced to three months in prison.
Authorities said the Lehigh University engineering professor and his wife told NASA that their startup company ArkLight would develop a cutting-edge sensor used to track climate change. Instead, prosecutors alleged, they used the company “as a front to funnel federal grant money to themselves for research performed by students and others.”
Jurors convicting the couple of six of 10 fraud counts.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/a827b865066d491b8095605e6f5ee0ea/professor-wife-sentenced-convictions-defrauding-nasa
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, from August 2009 through July 2010, the pair submitted proposals to NASA seeking research funding by claiming that their business, ArkLight, was doing research and subcontracting work to Lehigh University where Ding was a professor.
Instead, an investigation found that the pair used ArkLight “as a front to funnel federal grant money to themselves for research performed by students and others working under Ding’s supervision at his university lab.”
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the defendants sent invoices to NASA for research that, a jury found, ArkLight had not participated in.
http://www.phillyvoice.com/lehigh-university-professor-wife-sentenced-scheme-defraud-nasa/
Here is the Federal Indictment: federal_indictment_ding_zotova (PDF)
h/t to WUWT reader “average joe”
Wait a minute…..a year in jail and $75000….to earn $3/4 million
I’ll do it!…..
What was the name of one of the RICO20 that set up a company (with wife and daughter) to milk grants? Have they been referred for investigation?
They seem to have got off lightly but hopefully it sets a precedent.
I’m surprised they got caught. Must have been extremely careless or somebody ratted them out. The amount of dollars that flow out per year through Federal Grants is in the tens of billions and $700K is a rounding error (if that).
We once had a meeting at the US Government Printing Office and one of the GPO people said if we submitted an invoice for less than $20K, it would be paid and probably never followed up on. Wasn’t worth their time.
Anyone taking bets that nobody will hear a thing of this scandal in our “unbiased” media outlets?
They found themselves in hot water. The heat’s not missing anymore.
Case dismissed.
Orange is the new white.
Perhaps someone should consider Warren Buffet and his “investments” in wind and solar. Rent seeking is always more of a problem than simple fraud.
I got a little excited there when I read “A university professor in Pennsylvania has been sentenced to a year and a day in priso” while skimming…
But this is good too.
I do hope the audit was thorough and dinged the university for lack of controls (?).
At least it was not the other kind of abuse of young students that goes on in PA universities.
Could this be a tipping point:)
I wonder if there’s enough time for them to make Obama’s “non-violent criminal” pardon list?
What do you call two global warming scamsters sentenced to jail?
A good start.
Lehigh University
“cutting-edge sensor used to track climate change”
His bio has: “Ding has done pioneering work on THz generation, amplification, and applications; compact and portable THz sources; frequency up-conversion for single-photon detection; backward parametric processes and devices; exploitation of polariton resonances for efficient generation of mid-IR and far-IR waves; and field-induced effect, hot-photon effect, and removal of hot phonons in nitride heterostructures. ”
Is this impressive? Are hot phonons really a thing?
“sensor used to track climate change”
I’d love to read their description of what THAT would look like and how it would work.
I generally enjoy fiction.
So they got a slap on the wrist from the government. What a load.
how is any money spent on CLIMATE CHANGE research not fraud?
I’m having trouble with the “cutting-edge sensor used to track climate change”. What exactly would that be?
Just the name of the project should have rung a bell or two. It just shows the desperation in the holy order to simply buy something to put scepticism to rest. Reminds me of a family story. My grandfather was a homesteader in western Manitoba and he recounted that a salesman came through the region selling “Instant Death to Potato Beetles” in a paper wrapped box with the notice on it that cautioned not to open the box before the beetles were on the plants. My grandfather told us that when he opened it, there were two wooden blocks, number one with an oval drawn on it and the instruction: Put the beetle on block number one and squeeze down with block number two. Apparently, no one in the region mentioned they had bought the product. If I were defending the AGW case, I would charge that my client was being discriminated against because everyone working in this science has defrauded the government in one way or another – the government just didn’t want to talk about this.
I always enjoy being really intelligent, superior and sneering at other folks. Who needs sugar and other drugs when you’ve got that? Especially easy when you know what ‘climate’ is and understand how freezing cold objects, like the sky, can warm up warm objects, like the land & ocean.
So come on then, let’s hear it – what would YOU use as a sensor to measure climate change?
Gets you thinking?
Me myself would use an ordinary digital voltmeter and pair of stainless steel probes, maybe 18″ long.
Poke them into the ground about 18″ apart (use one of them to get that) and record the dc resistance it sees.
In my book, climate is all about water and dirt, especially how much of the former is in the latter.
Maybe it might need a pH correction to be really accurate but for starters it’ll do.
Clearly no-one here bothered to read the article linked to where it states that the pair defrauded NASA out of $72,000, not $700,000.
http://www.phillyvoice.com/lehigh-university-professor-wife-sentenced-scheme-defraud-nasa/
Mods, did I say something wrong? I did use the no no word ‘fraud’ but heck, wasn’t that the subject of the post?
Somehow I’m reminded of this old chestnut:
“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.” -Aesop