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| Yudong Zhu |
One of three Chinese nationals charged with taking bribes from China's United Imaging Healthcare four years ago has copped a plea with federal prosecutors. Yudong Zhu, a Chinese citizen working at New York University, pleaded guilty to lying in a filing for a U.S. National Institutes of Health grant.
Federal prosecutors in New York had charged Zhu and two other NYU researchers, also Chinese nationals, with taking bribes from United in exchange for inside information about their federally funded research on medical imaging, particularly MRI technology.
Charges were dropped against one of the other defendants, and the third was believed to have fled to China before being charged two years ago.
Zhu was originally charged with taking payments and other financial favors from United in 2011 shortly after receiving a $4 million NIH grant for MRI research.
Prosecutors said at the time of the charges that the three were caught after NYU became suspicious and filmed them in the lab in contact with United Imaging Healthcare in Shanghai.
- here are stories from Reuters and The New York Times