Ex-professor charged in fraud over UAV work

Ex-professor charged in fraud over UAV work
By Duncan Mansfield - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday May 21, 2008 12:22:04 EDT

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A retired University of Tennessee professor was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring to provide military secrets to a Chinese graduate student.

J. Reece Roth, 70, a professor emeritus who headed the school’s Plasma Sciences Lab, was charged in an 18-count indictment along with a university research spinoff company with violating the Arms Export Control Act and trying to defraud the Air Force.

The charges center on work done by Roth, the company and the graduate student on an Air Force contract between 2004 and 2006 to develop flight controls for weapons-deploying unmanned aircraft.

The government says they failed to get prior permission to involve a foreign national.

The foreigner was Xin Dai, a student on visa while working on his doctorate in electrical engineering at UT. He was one of several students, including an Iranian national, who worked on the Air Force contract with Roth and the company, Atmospheric Glow Technologies Inc.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2008/05/ap_professor_charged_052108/