A federal judge has delayed sentencing the former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist who pleaded guilty to lying about his connection to a Chinese talent recruitment program, giving the defense attorney a chance to persuade the court not to send his client to prison.
It is the second sentencing delay for Turab Lookman, who worked at the New Mexico nuclear-weapon laboratory for more than 20 years, since he pleaded guilty to one count of lying to Department of Energy investigators in 2018 about his connection to China’s Thousand Talents program.
The offense is punishable by up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine as large as $250,000. However, Lookman appears likely to catch a sentence at the low end of that range, according to court papers. He will now be sentenced on Aug. 26, rather than July 21.
In a motion filed June 30, Lookman’s attorney Paul Linnenburger said the U.S. Probation Office’s pre-sentencing report on his client — a sort of dossier for the sentencing judge — includes a guideline that could result in a sentence of 10 to 16 months, compared with what the defense thinks is the appropriate guideline of zero to six months’ imprisonment.
Lookman’s attorney said he tried to resolve the dispute informally with the Probation Office, but now will file formal objections with the court “shortly after the Fourth of July holiday.” The defense had yet to file those objections at deadline Friday for Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor.
Thousand Talents offers U.S. scientists speaking and research opportunities, sometimes parceled with gifts, free accommodation in China, and cash payments. The Donald Trump administration says the program is an effort to steal U.S. scientific and national defense secrets, and has prosecuted other former government scientists for lying about their participation in the program.
The Justice Department in May 2019 unsealed the indictment charging Lookman with three counts of lying to federal investigators during routine clearance interviews about his connection with Thousand Talents. Lookman initially pleaded not guilty before seeking a plea deal in which the U.S. attorney in the case threw out two of the charges. The government’s indictment said he accepted a position in Thousand Talents some time before Nov. 14, 2017, for personal compensation. He worked at Los Alamos until around the time of his 2019 indictment.
Lookman was supposed to appear for his sentencing hearing in April, but his attorney successfully petitioned the court to delay those proceedings because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lookman “is nearly 70 years old and has a family history of significant cardiac disease. He is thus in a high-risk pool for serious and potentially fatal complications associated with COVID-19,” according to Linnenburger’s June 30 motion.
The Department of Energy has banned its employees and contractors from working with Thousand Talents.
