U.S. federal prosecutors are planning to drop fraud charges against the Chinese-born former chairman of Temple University’s physics department, who was accused of scheming to provide sensitive technology to China.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia filed a motion in federal court Friday to dismiss four counts of wire fraud against Xi Xiaoxing, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in China. In its filing, the government said only that it had received “additional information” since charges against the 57-year-old professor were filed in May.

Xi had maintained his innocence, saying he did nothing more than “common academic collaborations practiced by so many colleagues every day.” After his arrest in May, he voluntarily stepped down as chairman of the university’s physics department, but remained a faculty member there.

Prosecutors accused him of seeking prestigious appointments in China in exchange for providing data on electronics technology invented by a U.S. company. Xi was working for the U.S. firm while on sabbatical in 2002. The company developed a thin-film superconducting device containing

magnesium diboride.

In 2004, Xi was awarded a grant from the U.S. Defense Department to purchase the device for research, but prosecutors allege that he “exploited it for the benefit of third parties in China, including government entities.”

The dismissal motion comes after Xi and his lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, gave a presentation to investigators on August 21. That presentation included affidavits from world renowned physicists and experts who looked at emails between Xi and contacts in China, and explained that he was involved in a scientific pursuit that had a very narrow commercial application and did not involve restricted technology, Zeidenberg said.

Xi had faced up to 80 years in prison and a $1 million fine if convicted. The dismissal motion still must be approved by a U.S. district judge.

In an interview with VOA (Mandarin service), Xi said the whole experience was very traumatic for him.

“At the beginning, I was very sure I did not do anything wrong. When they told me what I was charged (with), I was very concern (ed)… It was all clear that they had mixed things up. They made a mistake of not being able to tell differences (between) things. We realized that… My lawyer and I, we worked with the government. We wanted to tell them that mistakes were made. They misunderstood things.”
…