A researcher receiving National Institutes of Health grants while failing to disclose Chinese Communist Party ties has been sentenced to 37 months in prison and fines worth millions. 

Zheng Songguo, a former professor at Ohio State University (OSU), pleaded guilty to lying on his National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications, allowing him to receive $4.1 million in research grants to develop the fields of rheumatology and immunology for China. He was arrested while attempting to flee the U.S. last May.

Zheng was sentenced to 37 months in prison along with paying $3.4 million in restitution to the NIH and about $413,000 to OSU.

“For years the defendant concealed his participation in Chinese government talent recruitment programs, hiding his affiliations with at least five research institutions in China,” Assistant Director Alan E. Kohler Jr. of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division said in a statement.