Former Federal Reserve adviser sentenced for false statements about China ties

A former Federal Reserve senior adviser was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison for lying to investigators about secretly sharing sensitive central bank information with Chinese spies, according to the Justice Department.

John Harold Rogers, 64, was arrested last year on charges that included conspiracy to commit economic espionage after federal prosecutors accused him of leaking restricted economic forecasts and internal documents to Chinese intelligence officers.

After a two-week trial, he was acquitted in February on the more serious charge of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, but he was convicted of making false statements to investigators. 

The former senior adviser in the agency’s division of international finance had denied the allegations to investigators from the Fed’s Office of Inspector General in a 2020 interview.

“John Rogers spent years secretly funneling sensitive Federal Reserve information to Chinese spies, then ​looked investigators in the eye and lied about it. And when ​that wasn’t enough, he lied again under oath at trial,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement.

Judge Dabney Friedrich noted Roger’s senior role at the agency, adding that he had a “pattern of sharing” restricted information to China, citing “overwhelming evidence” proving his guilt.

“This is far from the ordinary false-statement case,” Friedrich said.

Rogers was also ordered to serve 12 months of supervised release.

Prosecutors alleged Rogers met Chinese intelligence operative Hummin Lee at a 2017 conference in China and later met with Lee and his associates during subsequent trips to China under the guise of teaching university courses.

They said the information could give China an advantage by revealing Federal Reserve interest rate decisions before they became public.

During those meetings, prosecutors said Rogers shared sensitive Federal Reserve information at Lee’s request.

Prosecutors said the assignments for Rogers were discussed in messages exchanged with Lee on the Chinese messaging app WeChat, which included conversations requesting Rogers collect information and meet in hotel rooms in Shanghai.

Authorities also said Rogers printed confidential documents before traveling abroad, stripping security markings from files before emailing them to his personal account.

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