Former Adviser to Federal Reserve Board of Governors Sentenced to Federal Prison Term

WASHINGTON - John Harold Rogers, 64, a former senior adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB), was sentenced today in U.S. District Court to 38 months in federal prison in connection with making false statements to federal investigators about sharing restricted Federal Reserve information with Chinese intelligence operatives, announced U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.

"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," said U.S. Attorney Pirro. "Federal Reserve employees entrusted with America's most sensitive economic information cannot sell out their country and their colleagues for personal gain and then expect to hide behind a single word."

A federal jury deliberated for two days before finding Rogers guilty on February 3 of making false statements to government investigators at the Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In addition to the 38-month prison sentence, Judge Dabney Friedrich ordered Rogers to serve 12 months of supervised release. Federal prosecutors had requested a 60-month prison term.

"John Rogers deliberately lied to our investigators to conceal the fact he shared restricted non-public Federal Reserve information with intelligence agents working for China," said Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "Today's sentencing sends a clear message that those who mislead and obstruct federal agents will be brought to justice. I commend the U.S. Attorney's Office, our agents, and our federal law enforcement partners for their hard work and persistence, which led to this result."

"While holding a position of trust, Rogers repeatedly violated Federal Reserve information security policies by taking sensitive, nonpublic information and sending it to himself, while he was in China, and to others affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Daniel Wierzbicki of the Washington Field Office's Counterintelligence and Cyber Division. "Rogers then lied to federal agents about these disclosures. His sentencing underscores the shared commitment of the FBI and the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General to pursue anyone who endangers U.S. economic and national security by passing confidential information to an adversarial government."

Rogers, of Vienna, Virginia, is a U.S. citizen who holds a Ph.D. in economics.

According to court papers, Rogers served for decades as a Senior Advisor at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, where he had access to restricted, nonpublic information about monetary policy and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). From 2010 until 2021, Rogers worked as a senior adviser in FRB's Division of International Finance where he was entrusted with confidential FRB information.

Beginning in 2017, Rogers developed a clandestine relationship with Hummin Lee, a Chinese intelligence operative, whom he met at a conference in China. Over the following years, Rogers met Lee and associates in hotel rooms in China under the guise of teaching academic "classes," using the sessions to convey Federal Reserve information that Lee had specifically tasked him to collect.

Rogers printed restricted documents to bring on a trip to China, stripped classification markings from materials before emailing them to his personal account, and forwarded sensitive information to a professor at Fudan University, a Chinese state-run institution, days before meeting Lee. Rogers understood that Lee was writing reports for the Chinese government using the information he provided, and knew China could use advance knowledge of Federal Reserve interest rate decisions to generate enormous profits trading its roughly $1.5 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities.

In exchange, Rogers received help with his new wife, university professorships, and substantial financial benefits from Lee and Chinese universities. He told investigators he "owed everything" to Hummin Lee.

On Feb. 4, 2020, Rogers agreed to be interviewed by investigators from the Federal Reserve's Office of Inspector General. When asked directly whether he had ever shared restricted Federal Reserve information outside the Board, he answered: "Never."

The investigation was conducted by the FBI Washington Field Office and the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General.

The matter was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam Barry and Jocelyn Ballantine, Trial Attorneys Nicholas O. Hunter and Yifei Zheng of the National Security Division, and Paralegal Specialist Derra McQuaig of the National Security Division.

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