Turab Lookman, a former Los Alamos physicist, dodged a six-month prison sentence last week, when a federal judge sentenced him to five years probation and a fine for lying to federal investigators about his connection to China’s Thousand Talents program.
With good behavior, Lookman’s probation might end sooner, according to the sentencing minute sheet filed in the District Court for New Mexico last week. Lookman is supposed to pay his $75,000 in five installments of $15,000. He would have to pay off the entire fine before securing early release from his probation.
Lookman, who was indicted in 2019 for three counts of lying to the feds but pleaded guilty only to one in a deal with the government, also will be prohibited from traveling outside of the state of New Mexico, and from opening new lines of credit without approval from his probation officer.
Chief District Judge William Johnson handed down the sentence.
Just the one count to which Lookman pleaded guilty could have gotten him five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The prosecution sought only six months imprisonment, saying a prison stopover would be appropriate for reasons of “national security, Defendant’s high level of education, compensation, responsibility, and as an example to others who may consider such conduct,” according to the minute sheet.
Lookman’s attorneys fought tooth and claw to keep the disgraced, nearly 70 year-old physicist out of prison. The defense argued down to the wire in the case that any custodial sentence was too much, fleshing out the complaint in an objection to the U.S. probation office’s pre-sentencing report on Lookman — a dossier of the defendant for the sentencing judge — and a 21-page sentencing memo filed in late August.
The defense also said that with COVID-19 still raging across the country, and Lookman at acute risk to the disease because of his family medical history and age, a prison term was too harsh.
Lookman lost his job at Los Alamos in 2019, shortly after the federal government indicted him for lying about his participation in Thousand Talents. The U.S. Attorneys in the case said Lookman lied on clearance-renewal paperwork and to investigators in 2017 and 2018.
China calls Thousand Talents a recruiting program aimed at bolstering Chinese scholarship and research. The Donald Trump administration calls it a brazen effort to poach technology and national defense secrets by tempting U.S. scientists to China with money and gifts.
Lookman’s attorneys argued that the scientific community had not yet reached such a harsh consensus about Thousand Talents in 2017, and that Lookman in any case has been a model for rehabilitation since he was briefly in government custody following his arrest.
