A retired professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville who was indicted last week on charges of plotting to violate the Arms Export Control Act has pleaded not guilty, The Knoxville News-Sentinel reported. The federal law prohibits disclosing sensitive technology to foreign countries.
The indictment accuses the professor, J. Reece Roth, of giving two graduate research assistants — one from Iran and one from China — unauthorized access to sensitive military arms information and lying to the Defense Department about their work on defense contracts. Mr. Roth has said that the information he is accused of sharing had already been published or presented at scientific meetings. A trial has been set for August in the U.S. District Court in Knoxville. —Charles Huckabee
