Charles Lieber, the former chair of the Chemistry Department at Harvard University, was convicted by a federal jury Tuesday in connection with hiding his ties to a Chinese-run recruitment program.The jury deliberated for about two hours and 45 minutes before announcing the verdict after five days of testimony in Boston federal court.Lieber, 62, had pleaded not guilty to two counts of filing false tax returns, two counts of making false statements and two counts of failing to file reports for a foreign bank account in China.“There is now no question that Charles Lieber lied to federal investigators and to Harvard in an attempt to hide his participation in the Chinese Thousand Talents Program,” Acting U.S. Attorney Nathaniel R. Mendell said in a statement. “He lied to the IRS about the money he was paid, and he concealed his Chinese bank account from the United States. The jury followed the evidence and the law to a just verdict.”Lieber was first arrested on Jan. 28, 2020, and charged with making false statements to federal authorities.He is among the highest-profile cases to come from the U.S. Department of Justice’s so-called “China Initiative,” which was launched in 2018 under former President Donald Trump but has faced criticism for its impact on academic research and concerns that it amounts to racial profiling of Chinese researchers. According to a criminal complaint, Lieber did not disclose that he was being paid a salary of up to $50,000 per month and up to $158,000 per year in living expenses by China's Thousand Talents Plan and the Wuhan University of Technology. Federal investigators also determined that Lieber was awarded more than $1.5 million to establish a nanotechnology research lab at WUT.In exchange, prosecutors said Lieber agreed to publish articles, organize international conferences and apply for patents on behalf of the Chinese university.Lieber was also accused of making false statements about his connections to China on National Institutes of Health grant applications. Former U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said those programs required Lieber to disclose if he was working with any foreign power.Lieber’s defense attorney Marc Mukasey had argued that prosecutors lacked proof of the charges. He maintained that investigators didn’t keep any record of their interviews with Lieber prior to his arrest.He argued that prosecutors would be unable to prove that Lieber acted “knowingly, intentionally, or willfully, or that he made any material false statement.” Mukasey also stressed Lieber wasn't charged with illegally transferring any technology or proprietary information to China.Prosecutors argued that Lieber knowingly hid his involvement in China’s Thousand Talents Plan, a program designed to recruit people with knowledge of foreign technology and intellectual property to China, to protect his career and reputation.Lieber was placed on administrative leave by Harvard after the arrest, but his biography still appears on the university's website.Additional charges were added to the case in July 2020, when a grand jury indicted Lieber on two counts of failing to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts and two counts of making and subscribing to a false income tax return.Lieber's career focused on nanotechnology and he is the principal inventor on more than 35 patents.The timing of the original charges, Lieber's alleged ties to the Wuhan University of Technology and the emergence of COVID-19 contributed to the viral spread of misinformation about the case during 2020. Numerous false claims linking the coincidental stories appeared online, many of which took WCVB reporting out of context. Related Links and Information:Federal Court Complaint: United States of America v. Charles LieberSnopes.com: “Was Charlies Lieber Arrested for Selling the COVID-19 Coronavirus to China?”FactCheck.org: “No Link Between Harvard Scientist Charles Lieber and Coronavirus” The Associated Press contributed to this report.