Dive Brief:

• A Morgan State University professor faces up to 20 years in prison following his conviction of defrauding the National Science Foundation of $200,000.
• Manoj Kumar Jha was convicted in a federal court in Baltimore of wire fraud, mail fraud, falsification of records, obstruction of justice, and theft of government property.
• Jha received $200,000 in grant funds for a highway project, and then converted the funds to personal use.

Dive Insight:

Jha received the grant funding from the National Science Foundation Small Business Technology Transfer, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland. The professor then used the money to make mortgage and personal credit card payments, plus he made $11,000 in salary payments to his wife, who did no work related to the grant program. He also tried to obtain another $500,000 through the program and lied to students who had received stipend payments from U.S. Department of Defense contracts, causing them to turn over $36,000 of the funding to him — which he deposited in his personal bank account.