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Prof. pleads not guilty in UAV secrets case

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — A retired University of Tennessee professor pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of conspiring to provide military secrets to foreign graduate students.

J. Reece Roth, 70, a professor emeritus who headed the school’s Plasma Sciences Lab, is charged with 18 counts related to violating the Arms Export Control Act and trying to defraud the U.S. Air Force.

He was arraigned on all charges Tuesday in Knoxville by U.S. Magistrate Bruce Guyton, who set a court date of Aug. 4. Roth said nothing in court beyond answering questions from Guyton to establish his competency to proceed with the case.

Most of the charges involve work performed from 2004 to 2006 by Roth, a Chinese graduate student and a university spinoff company called Atmospheric Glow Technologies Inc. for an Air Force contract to develop flight controls for unmanned aircraft, or “drones.”

Prosecutors said Roth and Atmospheric Glow Technologies failed to get government permission before involving foreign national Xin Dai in the work.

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

Xin was in the U.S. on a visa to work on his doctorate in electrical engineering at the university. He was one of several students who worked on the contract, including Sirous Nourgostar, an Iranian national.

Roth also was charged with one count of sharing technical data with Nourgostar.

Atmospheric Glow Technologies, which was started to market commercial applications for the plasma lab’s research, has since filed for bankruptcy.

Roth’s attorney, Tom Dundon, has said his client did nothing illegal and has conducted himself ethically and honestly.

One of Roth’s colleagues, 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.

If convicted on all counts, Roth could face more than 160 years in prison and more than $1.5 million in fines.

He surrendered his passport on Tuesday, but was granted permission to travel to his summer home in Maine as long as he notifies his pretrial officer.