Houes – A former researcher at the MD Anderson Cancer Center is accused of having tried to steal research related to cancer and to take him to China.
Former researcher faced with accusations
According to the office of the Harris County Prosecutor, Yunhai Li, 35, was accused of theft of trade secrets, which leads to a penalty of two to ten years in prison and fines up to $ 10,000. Officials say he was also accused of having falsified a government file, which is liable to one year in prison and a fine of $ 4,000.
Allegations
The background:
According to the district prosecutor’s office, the Chinese national had been employed by MD Anderson since 2022 and worked in the United States on a non-immigrant research scholarship exchange provided by the US State Department.
Li would have worked on research on breast cancer funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Ministry of Defense during his job.
Documents indicate that Li has downloaded data sensitive to Son Google Drive Personally while it was used with MD ANDERSON. They say that the institution reported this and confronted Li, who deleted the files and showed the proof that he did.
What MD Anderson did not know at the time, according to the documents, is that Li downloaded the data on a similar reader hosted by a Chinese server called Baidu.
The documents indicate that this has not been discovered as long as Li tried to go to China on July 9. At the airport, customs and the protection of American borders, in coordination with internal security surveys, searched its devices and found the new evidence, according to documents.
“We were able to hold him when he was trying to take a flight to China,” said the Harris county’s district prosecutor Sean Telee. “There was a good chance that he was going to be expelled or leaving the country – so we had to drop something. We had to make sure that he was going to stay here, the information would stay here, and he was going to be held responsible.”
The documents indicate that on the Drive Baidu, the investigators noted: “Unpublished research data and articles representing trade secrets, including restricted confidential research data, writings, drawings and models.”
“This intellectual property remains with us, so that we can save lives,” said Telee.
The documents also say that Li received funding for subsidies through the National Natural Science Foundation of China as well as the research and publication of research for the first affiliate hospital of the Chongqing Medical University before and during his job at MD Anderson, saying that Li did not disclose the conflict of interest.
The other side:
In the documents is a declaration under oath signed by Li admitting the acts, saying in the text: “I believe that I have the right to own and keep this data.”
Fox 26 contacted Li’s defense lawyer, who has not yet responded to our investigation.
The investigation continues
What is the next step:
“We have not finished the investigation in this case. We know that we have enough to go beyond the probable cause, but we have a lot of ways that we have to descend to make sure that all the people involved are held responsible,” said Telee.
Teare says that it is possible that federal prosecutors deposit their own accusations concerning the case, but it will be up to the office of the American lawyer.
Li filed his deposit of $ 5,100 and was endorsed in prison on Monday, abandoning his passport as a condition of his deposit.
The source: The information of this article comes from the office of the Harris county prosecutor and the judicial files of the county of Harris.
