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Ex-professor charged in fraud over UAV work

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.

Knoxville-based Atmospheric Glow Technologies, which Roth helped found, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

A colleague, physicist Daniel Max Sherman of Littleton, Colo., 37, has pleaded guilty on related charges and is awaiting sentencing, though he claimed he was unaware a law was broken.

Roth’s attorney, Thomas Dundon of Nashville, said Tuesday his client has had an “exemplary career as scientist and teacher” and has “adhered to the highest ethical standards.”

According to the indictment, Roth and the company “engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Air Force and transmit export-controlled technical data ... to one or more foreign nationals, including a citizen of the People’s Republic of China.”

The government claims Roth carried sensitive documents on a lecture trip to China in 2006 and directed wire transmissions of restricted technical data to China.

“Certainly the technology was complicated, the research they were doing was complicated,” Dundon said. “But I don’t think the facts of the case — what was done, what was thought — I don’t think those are complicated.

“The jury in this case will learn that Dr. Roth has conducted himself in the same scrupulously honest and open manner, with respect to his scientific research, that is the subject of this case,” the attorney said.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Russ Dedrick said, “The protection of United States technology is a continuing priority of the Department of Justice and this district.”

Roth faces more than 150 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines if convicted. He is expected to make an initial court appearance before a federal magistrate next week.