December 13, 2021 | 2:30 PM EST

Federal authorities arrested Lieber and charged him with fraud on Jan. 28, 2020. Lieber’s lab at Harvard has received grants from the US National Institutes of Health and the US Department of Defense for more than $15 million since 2008, according to an indictment filed on July 28, 2020.

As a condition of receiving federal funding, Lieber was required to disclose any foreign affiliations and collaborations. In the indictment, the US government alleges that in 2011 Lieber became a strategic scientist for WUT and in 2012 signed a contract to be part of China’s Thousand Talents Program, a state-run effort to recruit scientists from other countries. The government claims that Lieber lied about these affiliations during interviews with authorities in 2018 and 2019.

The July 28, 2020, indictment also added the tax-related charges. These stem from Lieber’s arrangement with WUT, in which the school allegedly paid him a monthly salary of up to $50,000 and living expenses of up to $150,000. According to the indictment, Lieber did not declare this income on his 2013 and 2014 federal tax filings, nor did he disclose a bank account he held in China.

Lieber’s attorneys pushed to hold his trial as soon as possible because Lieber has cancer of the lymphatic system. If his current treatment fails to slow the cancer’s progression or its side effects become too severe, his new treatment options require hospitalization and isolation, his attorneys told the...