Lexington woman convicted of fraud in connection with federal research money
A Lexington woman has been convicted of fraud in connection with federal research grants.
Jyoti Agrawal, 50, was charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and money laundering. She denied wrongdoing, but a federal court jury convicted her on the charges last week.
Agrawal and her former husband, Subhadarshi Nayak, 50, had a business called ScienceTomorrow LLC that applied for research grants through the U.S. Department of Energy, according to court documents.
Agrawal allegedly submitted false documents to the program, misrepresented information in order to get an award, and kept the money for costs she did not incur. She also falsely certified how she spent the money, according to a prosecution memorandum.
For instance, Agrawal and Subhadarshi generated a fake letter at one point saying ScienceTomorrow had a deal with the University of Tennessee to work on an electron scanning microscope, but they knew there was no such contract, the indictment charged.
That phase of the project had a budget of $300,000.
Agrawal and Nayak received nearly $1 million in grants based in part on falsehoods, the indictment charged.
Nayak pleaded guilty.
In one instance, he claimed to have a deal with a University of Kentucky professor to work on a project on cleaning up contaminated soil because he knew that would help his chances of getting the money, but there was no such deal.
Nayak was sentenced to six months in prison followed by six months of home detention, and forfeited $127,028 to the federal government.
Chief U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves scheduled Agrawal to be sentenced in August.
