Former GE Engineer From Niskayuna To Be Sentenced for China ‘Espionage’ Plot

Jan. 2—ALBANY — On the day that Xiaoqing Zheng met his future in-laws, he fixed every malfunctioning item in their home.

Both engineers, the parents were impressed with the young man, whom their daughter, Hui Jin Zheng, had met in college. The two married, had a daughter and in the early 1990s moved from China to the U.S where they raised two more children. Zheng, who began college in China at 16, eventually landed at General Electric in Schenectady where he was considered one of the world's leading experts in the field of turbine technology

But if Zheng's story was the American dream, it became a nightmare. The Niskayuna engineer faces the possibility of several years in federal prison for conspiring to move intellectual property to benefit China. In March, a jury convicted Zheng of one count of conspiring to commit economic espionage, acquitted him of four other counts and deadlocked on seven other counts. His sentencing is set for Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Mae D'Agostino, who presided over the trial.

Prosecutors for U.S. Attorney Carla Freedman asked D'Agostino to sentence Zheng to eight years and one month in federal prison.

"The defendant is a thief whose actions were motivated by greed for money," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Belliss and trial attorney Richard Chang wrote in the memo.

Kevin Luibrand, the defense attorney for Zheng, recommended to the judge that probation with home detention would serve as a proper deterrent.

" Dr. Zheng's conviction reasonably means that he will never have or be able to restart his career," Luibrand told the judge in a letter. "That collateral consequence alone is a substantial punishment."

The details of Zheng's case are complicated — as is the story of the man awaiting sentence.

Hui Jin Zheng, his wife of 35 years, told the judge about her life with Zheng spanning two continents.

"I fell for his kindness, intelligence and brightness," Hui Jin Zheng told the judge in a letter.

In 2015, she and her husband bought cemetery plots for themselves in Latham, she said.

"We were set for our forever-resting place together. We love, trust and support each in our long marriage," she said of her husband, who like her is a U.S. citizen. "I do wish you could see Xiaoqing from my perspective ...he is a family man, faulted yet sincere. He never intended to harm anyone or any company. He has already committed to serve the communities and one day become a missionary. I hope you have mercy on him and make him valuable to our society."

The judge received more than 15 similar character letters on behalf of Zheng. In addition to Zheng's wife they were from his eldest daughter, former work colleagues, leaders of his church and from an interim dean of the University at Albany's Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, court records showed.

The letters praised Zheng as a hard-working, thoughtful and caring man with strong roots in his Capital Region community.

"If you could have talked to me five years ago, before this investigation and trial began, I would have said that my parents are a testament to the American Dream coming true," wrote Angel Zheng, the defendant's eldest daughter.

For the last nine years, she noted, she has worked at a nonprofit in New York City to help schools that largely serve low-income students of color.

"That is something I've carried from my experience as my father's daughter," she said.

Julie Novkov, the Rockefeller college dean, described Zheng in a letter on school letterhead as an "invested and respected member of a community of gymnastics parents."

Their sons, Novkov explained, competed on the World Class Gymnastics Academy's competitive team. But unlike some similar situations where rivalries develop, parents in their group "largely avoided negativity," she said, adding, "Xiaoqing's consistent and enthusiastic support for all of the boys on the team was a large part of the reason why. At every meet he was cheering for every boy, celebrating their triumphs and commiserating with their sadness with their parents."

Binglin Li, chair of the Chinese Community Center in Latham, wrote that Zheng was a three-time recipient of the "Outstanding Services" award for his volunteer work. Andrew Luo, pastor of Chinese Fellowship Bible Church in Niskayuna, said Zheng and his wife were integral and "irreplaceable" parts of the church and greater Chinese community in the Capital Region.

Federal prosecutors painted a much more sinister image of Zheng to D'Agostino. They said Zheng betrayed his employer and the U.S. "not only to enrich himself and his Chinese companies, but in order to benefit the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), one of our nation's fiercest economic competitors."

The roots of the federal case began in 2016 by happenstance. At the time, FBI agents in Cincinnati who were probing an unrelated case spotted a recording on a website that showed Zheng giving a presentation in China on July 1, 2016. Zheng was speaking at the Jiangsu Province Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics College of Energy and Power Energy Engineering in China. And the agents learned Zheng had, since 2012, been a member of a Chinese government initiative known as the Thousand Talents Program, which was intended to recruit talented researchers to China.

The agents, aware that Zheng had been employed at GE in Schenectady since 2008, notified security officials at GE. The agents learned that in 2016, Zheng notified GE of his business interests in two Chinese businesses: Nanjing Tianyi Aeronautical Technology (which dealt with the same turbine-sealing technology that Zheng worked on for GE) and Lioning Tianyi Aviation Technology.

As their suspicions deepened, the agents wondered if Zheng's involvement in the companies was greater than he had let on. In June 2018, GE put a monitor on Zheng's work computer. The next month, Zheng emailed 40 files to himself, and then traveled to China for more than three weeks. While in China, the engineer spoke to the Communist Party secretary for Liaoyang Province at a signing ceremony linked to an agreement involving a Zheng-managed business.

When Zheng returned to Niskayuna, he was not home long before the FBI went to his home on Cephalona Drive on Aug. 1, 2018. They seized his desktop computer, iPhone and publications such as one about how credited companies could get financial breaks on certain technologies important to the Chinese government. They interviewed Zheng over several hours and arrested him.

The trial, which took place over four weeks in March, reached a conclusion after the jury was deliberating for several days.

The defense and prosecutor are sharply at odds over the calculated amount of loss caused by Zheng. The prosecution said it exceeded $1.5 million based on a probation officer's pre-sentencing investigation report; Luibrand said the evidence showed no proof of loss.

The final decision could be reached Tuesday as Zheng, for decades a man clamoring to fix broken things, hopes to fix his legal troubles with a lenient sentence.

To this day, Jin Hui Zheng said her husband of 37 years holds a passion for mending things.

"He cannot stand anything not working," she said. "So he is always busy and always working on something. He walks extra miles to help people, which earned him a good reputation. But walking extra miles at work may not necessarily result as well. His endless chase for standing out and solving issues has led him to trouble this time."

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article misidentified Xiaoqing Zheng's wife. She is Hui Jin Zheng.

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