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How are the feds able to stick a wire fraud charge on almost anything except for academic fraud? It's one thing to make a mistake like Reinhart and Rogoff's emb

How are the feds able to stick a wire fraud charge on almost anything except for academic fraud? It's one thing to make a mistake like Reinhart and Rogoff's embarrassing excel blunder. It's entirely something else to falsify data. > Under Zlokovic’s leadership, the USC institute has expanded to more than 30 labs and grown its annual funding more than 10-fold, exceeding $39 million in 2022. NIH grants to Zlokovic have totaled about $93 million. A prodigious fundraiser, in the past decade alone he has added at least $28 million from private sources, according to USC. So the NIH has given the man $93m. Surely that's a place to start?

boringg 3y ago
The LOE to figure out if someone manipulated data vs wirefraud is significantly different and probably much harder.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  I would assume that once law enforcement has established facts were materially altered for the purpose of obtaining funding, the jump to wire fraud would be relatively trivial (given today's heavy reliance on email/internet to do just about anything).
  - chiggsy 3y ago
    > once law enforcement has established facts were materially altered for the purpose of obtaining funding If you establish this, that's the case right there.
jvans 3y ago
Wire fraud and prison sentences would be a good start. Besides the absolute dollar amount, the amount of damage done in the form of second order affects is enormous.
- nerdponx 3y ago
  Could the NIH file some kind of civil suit here?
  - staticautomatic 3y ago
    Potentially for something like fraud. There could also maybe be a False Claims Act suit here.
MPSimmons 3y ago
If you (like me) weren't familiar with the Excel mistake: https://www.businessinsider.com/reinhart-and-rogoff-admit-excel-blunder-2013-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/reinhart-and-rogoff-admit-ex...
- Brentward 3y ago
  I thought it was going to be the Excel DNA to date conversion. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-microsoft-excel-misreading-dates https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-renam...
- teachrdan 3y ago
  I love that the grad student who caught it came from a Marxist-oriented economics program. He legit figured it out by trying to replicate the results published by Reinhart and Rogoff. Not-so-fun fact: Economists don't publish their actual Excel spreadsheets, which would have made their error trivial to prove, but just the results! https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-excel-error-heard-round-the-world https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-excel-error-heard-round...
manvillej 3y ago
what exactly is wire fraud? it seems like its basically "If you get money from lying electronically, go to jail"
- alistairSH 3y ago
  That's the gist of it. It's basically a modernization of previously existing mail fraud statutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud
theultdev 3y ago
They usually don't use the wire fraud trick on academics ever since they killed Aaron Swartz.
- dumbo-octopus 3y ago
  Let us at least be truthful in our tactless descriptions of history: he killed himself to avoid spending 6 months in low security prison.
  - jstarfish 3y ago
    Now you're being dishonest. The 6-month sentence was a plea deal he declined. It was a 35-50 year sentence if he fought and lost all charges. It remained to be seen if he were actually guilty. > Carmen Ortiz, the federal prosecutor who hounded Aaron Swartz in the months before his Friday suicide, has released a statement arguing that "this office’s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case." She says that she recognized that Swartz's crimes were not serious, and as a result she sought "an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct – a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting." > That's funny because the press release her office released in 2011 says that Swartz "faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million." And she apparently didn't think even that was enough, because last year her office piled on even more charges, for a theoretical maximum of more than 50 years in jail. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swartz-and-the-corrupt-practice-of-plea-bargaining/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swa... > Some have blithely said Aaron should just have taken a deal. This is callous. There was great practical risk to Aaron from pleading to any felony. Felons have trouble getting jobs, aren't allowed to vote (though that right may be restored) and cannot own firearms (though Aaron wasn't the type for that, anyway). More particularly, the court is not constrained to sentence as the government suggests. Rather, the probation department drafts an advisory sentencing report recommending a sentence based on the guidelines. The judge tends to rely heavily on that "neutral" report in sentencing. If Aaron pleaded to a misdemeanor, his potential sentence would be capped at one year, regardless of his guidelines calculation. However, if he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for more. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years, though the guidelines calculation would remain the same. No wonder he didn't want to plead to 13 felonies. Also, Aaron would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe. https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2 https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
raincom 3y ago
Feds don't prosecute the stuff their own tribe is involved in. Once retired, federal bureaucrats become honorary professors, chairs, fellows at 'X school of international studies/government', 'Y school of comparative law', 'Z school of efficient administration'. All such schools are hotbeds for govt spies, other folks. Where and how do these schools get money from? They use the same techniques that this neuroscientist uses. Once they open a front, charging academic fraud in the name of wire fraud charge, etc, if they succeed in doing that, expect the next round to be after these sinecure schools and their fundings, when power structures change.
- profsummergig 3y ago
  “Director of Strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology” https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-board-set-back-the-promise-of-artificial-intelligence https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-board-set-ba...
- __loam 3y ago
  This seems like needlessly conspiratorial thinking.
- huitzitziltzin 3y ago
  This is a deeply uninformed comment. I don’t even know where to start. Nearly every sentence is wrong. You can absolutely get hauled in front of a judge for fraud and abuse in the use of NIH grants. You can be required to pay all of the money back, among other punishments. Google will reveal a variety of cases. It is in fact rare for retired federal bureaucrats to become professors. It is much more common for people at the Secretary level to get teaching positions at schools of public policy. I am not aware of any former CIA directors holding those roles but I invite you to look. These schools are not “hotbeds of spies” - truly that it is a completely uninformed statement. By the way, very few law professors work via grants and even fewer via NIH grants.
- chiggsy 3y ago
  >Feds don't prosecute the stuff their own tribe is involved in I get it. The world is complex, and grouping helps make it more manageable. However, in no way are the "Feds," part of the same tribe, especially in 2023. >All such schools are hotbeds for govt spies, other folks. Maybe recruitment? I'm not familiar with the curriculum at USC. Seems like you'd get them when they finished their degrees, unless they offer "wetwork" as an elective. >They use the same techniques that this neuroscientist uses. Disagree. Whatever tribe or faction these people you describe belong to, they are definitely not publishing papers. They'd be administrators. They are not involved in prosecuting academic malfeasance, and certainly the prosecution, is not taking advice from retired government employees. He/she/they have their own careers to consider!
ak_111 3y ago
Where do you draw the line? I saw many funding proposals for extremely abstract category theory justified on the basis it helps number theorists solve problems related to cryptography and protect e-commerce. Between friends everyone knows this is not true. Am not against abstract research: given how cheap it is, I don't understand why we can just allow it to be funded without having to provide justification that makes everyone feel a bit of a criminal while writing the proposal. It should be seen sort of how we public commissions art. Another type of mini-fraud: you could say almost 80% of applied machine learning papers contain serious methodical mistakes that are almost equivalent to falsifying data, and what's worse the authors are well aware of and even the reviewers. I am talking about the kaggle-type ones where you apply some kind of PCA or neural network on some relatively small dataset.
- rdedev 3y ago
  It's kind of sad that you need to jump through a lot of hoops for research funding but when talking about things like military funding everyone is ready to find it more than required and not ask too many questions
  - golergka 3y ago
    Because it actually is? I don’t understand how one can compare abstract research into category theory and investment into millions of people not getting killed and conquered and get sad that the latter comes up on top.
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      We're not talking about Saddam's military budget, we're talking about the one they used to kill and conquer him.
      - nickff 3y ago
        Saddam Hussein started the Iran-Iraq war, in which Iraq achieved no significant gain, at the cost of between one and two million lives. This war took place in the middle of his 40-year tenure as a president who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people with the same military equipment.

boringg 3y ago

The LOE to figure out if someone manipulated data vs wirefraud is significantly different and probably much harder.

alistairSH 3y ago
I would assume that once law enforcement has established facts were materially altered for the purpose of obtaining funding, the jump to wire fraud would be relatively trivial (given today's heavy reliance on email/internet to do just about anything).
- chiggsy 3y ago
  > once law enforcement has established facts were materially altered for the purpose of obtaining funding If you establish this, that's the case right there.

jvans 3y ago

Wire fraud and prison sentences would be a good start. Besides the absolute dollar amount, the amount of damage done in the form of second order affects is enormous.

nerdponx 3y ago
Could the NIH file some kind of civil suit here?
- staticautomatic 3y ago
  Potentially for something like fraud. There could also maybe be a False Claims Act suit here.

MPSimmons 3y ago

If you (like me) weren't familiar with the Excel mistake: https://www.businessinsider.com/reinhart-and-rogoff-admit-excel-blunder-2013-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/reinhart-and-rogoff-admit-ex...

Brentward 3y ago
I thought it was going to be the Excel DNA to date conversion. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-rename-microsoft-excel-misreading-dates https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/6/21355674/human-genes-renam...
teachrdan 3y ago
I love that the grad student who caught it came from a Marxist-oriented economics program. He legit figured it out by trying to replicate the results published by Reinhart and Rogoff. Not-so-fun fact: Economists don't publish their actual Excel spreadsheets, which would have made their error trivial to prove, but just the results! https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-excel-error-heard-round-the-world https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-excel-error-heard-round...

manvillej 3y ago

what exactly is wire fraud? it seems like its basically "If you get money from lying electronically, go to jail"

alistairSH 3y ago
That's the gist of it. It's basically a modernization of previously existing mail fraud statutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_and_wire_fraud

theultdev 3y ago

They usually don't use the wire fraud trick on academics ever since they killed Aaron Swartz.

dumbo-octopus 3y ago
Let us at least be truthful in our tactless descriptions of history: he killed himself to avoid spending 6 months in low security prison.
- jstarfish 3y ago
  Now you're being dishonest. The 6-month sentence was a plea deal he declined. It was a 35-50 year sentence if he fought and lost all charges. It remained to be seen if he were actually guilty. > Carmen Ortiz, the federal prosecutor who hounded Aaron Swartz in the months before his Friday suicide, has released a statement arguing that "this office’s conduct was appropriate in bringing and handling this case." She says that she recognized that Swartz's crimes were not serious, and as a result she sought "an appropriate sentence that matched the alleged conduct – a sentence that we would recommend to the judge of six months in a low security setting." > That's funny because the press release her office released in 2011 says that Swartz "faces up to 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million." And she apparently didn't think even that was enough, because last year her office piled on even more charges, for a theoretical maximum of more than 50 years in jail. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swartz-and-the-corrupt-practice-of-plea-bargaining/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/01/17/aaron-swa... > Some have blithely said Aaron should just have taken a deal. This is callous. There was great practical risk to Aaron from pleading to any felony. Felons have trouble getting jobs, aren't allowed to vote (though that right may be restored) and cannot own firearms (though Aaron wasn't the type for that, anyway). More particularly, the court is not constrained to sentence as the government suggests. Rather, the probation department drafts an advisory sentencing report recommending a sentence based on the guidelines. The judge tends to rely heavily on that "neutral" report in sentencing. If Aaron pleaded to a misdemeanor, his potential sentence would be capped at one year, regardless of his guidelines calculation. However, if he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for more. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years, though the guidelines calculation would remain the same. No wonder he didn't want to plead to 13 felonies. Also, Aaron would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe. https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-losing-aaron-swartz-part-2 https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2013/01/towards-learning-...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

raincom 3y ago

Feds don't prosecute the stuff their own tribe is involved in. Once retired, federal bureaucrats become honorary professors, chairs, fellows at 'X school of international studies/government', 'Y school of comparative law', 'Z school of efficient administration'. All such schools are hotbeds for govt spies, other folks. Where and how do these schools get money from? They use the same techniques that this neuroscientist uses. Once they open a front, charging academic fraud in the name of wire fraud charge, etc, if they succeed in doing that, expect the next round to be after these sinecure schools and their fundings, when power structures change.

profsummergig 3y ago
“Director of Strategy at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology” https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-board-set-back-the-promise-of-artificial-intelligence https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-board-set-ba...
__loam 3y ago
This seems like needlessly conspiratorial thinking.
huitzitziltzin 3y ago
This is a deeply uninformed comment. I don’t even know where to start. Nearly every sentence is wrong. You can absolutely get hauled in front of a judge for fraud and abuse in the use of NIH grants. You can be required to pay all of the money back, among other punishments. Google will reveal a variety of cases. It is in fact rare for retired federal bureaucrats to become professors. It is much more common for people at the Secretary level to get teaching positions at schools of public policy. I am not aware of any former CIA directors holding those roles but I invite you to look. These schools are not “hotbeds of spies” - truly that it is a completely uninformed statement. By the way, very few law professors work via grants and even fewer via NIH grants.
chiggsy 3y ago
>Feds don't prosecute the stuff their own tribe is involved in I get it. The world is complex, and grouping helps make it more manageable. However, in no way are the "Feds," part of the same tribe, especially in 2023. >All such schools are hotbeds for govt spies, other folks. Maybe recruitment? I'm not familiar with the curriculum at USC. Seems like you'd get them when they finished their degrees, unless they offer "wetwork" as an elective. >They use the same techniques that this neuroscientist uses. Disagree. Whatever tribe or faction these people you describe belong to, they are definitely not publishing papers. They'd be administrators. They are not involved in prosecuting academic malfeasance, and certainly the prosecution, is not taking advice from retired government employees. He/she/they have their own careers to consider!

ak_111 3y ago

Where do you draw the line? I saw many funding proposals for extremely abstract category theory justified on the basis it helps number theorists solve problems related to cryptography and protect e-commerce. Between friends everyone knows this is not true. Am not against abstract research: given how cheap it is, I don't understand why we can just allow it to be funded without having to provide justification that makes everyone feel a bit of a criminal while writing the proposal. It should be seen sort of how we public commissions art. Another type of mini-fraud: you could say almost 80% of applied machine learning papers contain serious methodical mistakes that are almost equivalent to falsifying data, and what's worse the authors are well aware of and even the reviewers. I am talking about the kaggle-type ones where you apply some kind of PCA or neural network on some relatively small dataset.

rdedev 3y ago
It's kind of sad that you need to jump through a lot of hoops for research funding but when talking about things like military funding everyone is ready to find it more than required and not ask too many questions
- golergka 3y ago
  Because it actually is? I don’t understand how one can compare abstract research into category theory and investment into millions of people not getting killed and conquered and get sad that the latter comes up on top.
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    We're not talking about Saddam's military budget, we're talking about the one they used to kill and conquer him.
    - nickff 3y ago
      Saddam Hussein started the Iran-Iraq war, in which Iraq achieved no significant gain, at the cost of between one and two million lives. This war took place in the middle of his 40-year tenure as a president who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people with the same military equipment.