Harvard’s former chemistry head Charles Lieber avoids prison over undisclosed links to China

More than three years after his arrest, Charles Lieber, the former chair of Harvard University’s chemistry department, has avoided prison for failing to disclose funding from China. For hiding his affiliation with a Chinese university, as well as income tax and foreign bank account reporting violations, Lieber was sentenced yesterday to time served, two years of supervised release with six months under house arrest, plus a $50,000 (£40,000) fine, and $33,600 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Lieber had faced a maximum of 26 years in prison and $1.2 million in fines. The nanoscience pioneer was arrested in January 2020 after authorities discovered that he failed to disclose significant Chinese funding to Harvard or US funding agencies, which raised conflict of interest concerns.