Xue Donghua, the husband of former AU researcher Gao Zhan, was sentenced last Friday to a year in prison for failing to report income on the couple's taxes from the illegal sale of microprocessors to China, according to The Washington Post.
Xue was sentenced because he received $539,296 from his wife's illegal sale of Military Intel 486 spare DX2 microprocessors to China, The Post reported.
Gao was sentenced to seven months in prison, eight months of "community confinement" and a fine of $2,500, The Eagle previously reported.
Because Gao cooperated with the investigation and has a young son, she is not required to begin her sentence until June of this year. Xue will start his sentence once Gao has finished hers in September 2005, according to The Post.
Xue has negative feelings about his sentence, his lawyer said.
"He's certainly not happy about it," Xue's lawyer, Alan H. Yamamoto said. Yamamoto said that Xue still has a chance for a more lenient sentence and is still seeing if he can get it changed. Xue is attempting to assist the government with an unknown matter in order to gain a more lenient sentence, Yamamoto said. Yamamoto would not comment on the issue on which he would be cooperating.
The Chinese government arrested Gao in 2001 because it suspected her of espionage, The Eagle previously reported. She was released in July 2001 after being imprisoned for 166 days.
During his sentencing, Xue said he was "deeply depressed" over his wife's detainment in China, according to The Post.
Gao worked as an unpaid researcher in the School of International Service from fall 2000 until September 2002.
