A former senior advisor to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was sentenced to over three years in jail for mendacity to federal investigators about sharing restricted central-bank data with Chinese language intelligence operatives.
Marco Bello | Reuters
A former senior advisor to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was sentenced to over three years in jail for mendacity to federal investigators about sharing restricted central-bank data with Chinese language intelligence operatives, in line with the Justice Division.
John Harold Rogers, 64, was discovered responsible in February of constructing false statements to investigators when he denied sharing restricted data on financial coverage, U.S. Lawyer Jeanine Pirro stated in a press release Wednesday. The identical jury acquitted him of the extra critical cost of conspiracy to commit financial espionage.
“John Rogers spent years secretly funneling delicate Federal Reserve data to Chinese language spies, then seemed investigators within the eye and lied about it. And when that wasn’t sufficient, he lied once more underneath oath at trial,” Pirro stated.
The sentencing comes at a time when the Trump administration has intensified its pursuit of alleged financial espionage by Beijing.
U.S. District Choose Dabney Friedrich additionally ordered Rogers to serve extra 12 months of supervised launch. Protection legal professionals had requested for no extra jail time past the roughly 18 months he had already spent in custody, which might be credited towards his sentence.
Rogers, a U.S. citizen who holds a Ph.D in economics, labored as a senior advisor for the Federal Reserve Board’s division of worldwide finance from 2010 to 2021, with entry to nonpublic materials on financial coverage and Federal Open Market Committee deliberations.
Prosecutors argued that sharing advance data of Fed interest-rate selections may have allowed Beijing to generate “huge earnings” from buying and selling its roughly $1.5 trillion in U.S. Treasurys, in line with the Justice Division.
Rogers had allegedly begun a clandestine relationship in 2017 with Hummin Lee, a Chinese language intelligence operative he met at a convention in China, and conveyed Fed data throughout conferences in Chinese language resort rooms held underneath the guise of educating tutorial lessons.
He printed restricted paperwork earlier than touring to China, emailing supplies to his private account after stripping classification markings, and forwarded delicate data to a professor at Fudan College, the Justice division launch stated. In alternate, he obtained college professorships and monetary advantages, prosecutors stated.
Requested immediately in a February 2020 inspector common interview whether or not he had ever shared restricted Fed data exterior the board, Rogers answered “by no means,” in line with the Justice Division.
Chinese language ministry of overseas affairs didn’t reply to CNBC’s request for feedback.
Correction: The lead image on this story has been changed.
