July 2020: Superseding Indictment Added Tax and FBAR Counts

DOCUMENTED

Documented: the Department of Justice’s December 21, 2021, conviction release states that Lieber “was indicted in June 2020 and was subsequently charged in a superseding indictment in July 2020.” The counts that went to the jury included two counts of making and subscribing a false income tax return (26 U.S.C. § 7206(1)) and two counts of failing to file Reports of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (31 U.S.C. §§ 5314/5322), in addition to the two false-statement counts.

A Department of Defense Inspector General reprint of a July 28, 2020, charging notice states a Boston federal grand jury that day charged two false-return counts and two FBAR counts for failing to report income from WUT. That reprint is a government secondary hosting of the USAO announcement.

No count in that package is titled espionage, theft of trade secrets, or export control.

Sources

DOJ OPA conviction PR, 2021-12-21 (June indictment; July superseding). www.justice.gov (primary)

DoD IG reprint, “Harvard University Professor Charged with Tax Offenses,” dated July 28, 2020. media.defense.gov (primary)

CourtListener docket, 1:20-cr-10111. www.courtlistener.com (primary)

Daily Caller / Farrell column mentioning the tax charges, 2020-07-31 (commentary). dailycaller.com (commentary)

Opinion

The following is commentary by this site. It is not a finding of fact and not a legal conclusion.

Compiler take

They added the money counts. Returns and a foreign account. Still no spy statute. The jury later took all six.