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Former Univ. of Florida professor indicted for obtaining $1.75M federal grant fraudulently

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Posted at 5:46 PM, Feb 05, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-05 19:46:41-05

A former associate professor and researcher at the University of Florida were indicted Wednesday on allegations of obtaining a $1.75 million federal grant by concealing ties he had with the Chinese government.

According to a U.S. Attorney's Office news release, Lin Yang is charged with six counts of wire fraud and four counts of making false statements to an agency of the United States.

"The taxpayer dollars that funded Yang’s research were intended to benefit the health and well-being of U.S. citizens," said U.S. Attorney Lawrence Keefe for the Northern District of Florida in the news release. "But our indictment alleges that Yang engaged in acts of deliberate deception so that he could also further the research goals of the Chinese Communist government and advance his own business interests."

Federal prosecutors said Yang obtained the grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to "develop and disseminate an imaging informatics tool for muscles known as MuscleMiner."