Attorneys for the former Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist due to be sentenced this week for lying to federal authorities about his connection to a Chinese talent-recruiting program asked for only fines and probation for their client, according to a long-awaited sentencing memo.
Turab Lookman, indicted in May 2019 on three counts of lying to federal investigators and now pleading guilty to one of them, is “a man of depth, compassion and caring,” his attorneys wrote in the memo. They urged the U.S. District Court for New Mexico to take those qualities into account when it hands down his sentence in a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.
Under federal law, Lookman could get five years in prison and a fine as large as $250,000. The assistant U.S. attorneys handling the case might not recommend the maximum, other court documents show, but the defense worries that 10 to 16 months behind bars might still be on the table.
In the sentencing memo filed Friday, Lookman’s attorneys said even that would be too harsh, particularly considering what they called the court’s obligation to craft a sentence that considers “both the act and the actor.”
Aside from his decades of “service to others and scientific advancement … Lookman’s post-offense rehabilitative efforts and growth, lack of criminal history, and severely low likelihood of recidivism show that a low-end sentence will provide adequate protection to the public, just punishment and promote respect for the law,” according to the sentencing memo.
Lookman is said to have lied to federal investigators, during routine clearance interviews, about his connection with the Chinese Thousand Talents program. According to the indictment, he accepted a position in Thousand Talents some time before Nov. 14, 2017, for personal compensation. Lookman worked at Los Alamos until around the time of his 2019 indictment. He spent decades at the lab, and did not always work on classified programs, according to his defense.
Lookman initially pleaded not guilty before seeking a plea deal in January, as a result of which the federal government dropped two of the charges.
The Department of Energy subsequently banned its employees and contractors from working with Thousand Talents, which the Donald Trump administration says is a facade for Chinese intelligence gathering and technology poaching. There have been other high-profile Thousand Talents busts, notably including Charles Lieber, head of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department, in February.
