Today, on the eve of the trial of retired Professor John Roth of the University of Tennessee for permitting a Chinese graduate student to access controlled technical data relating to military unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) development contract, the company that subcontracted Roth to work on the UAV project pleaded guilty to ten violations of the Arms Export Control Act. As part of its guilty plea, the company, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, admitted that it knew that Professor Roth had a Chinese graduate student assisting him on the UAV project and was providing information on the project to the student without the approval of the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (“DDTC”). Roth’s trial starts Monday. Roth has pleaded not guilty.

We have discussed this case in two prior posts which can be found here and here. Roth’s likely defense will be that he didn’t know that he violated any laws by providing the information to the graduate student. Although AGT’s plea doesn’t directly affect that claim, that plea may result in AGT officials providing testimony on the issue of Professor Roth’s knowledge of whether U.S. export laws restrained him from disclosing the UAV data to a Chinese national.

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