Ex-Federal Reserve adviser gets 38 months for lying about China ties

John Harold Rogers was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison for lying to investigators about his contacts with China-linked operatives while serving as a senior adviser in the Federal Reserve’s international finance division. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich also ordered 12 months of supervised release.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia sought 60 months, saying Rogers used his position to pass information that belonged inside the Fed. The 64-year-old was convicted by a federal jury on February 3, 2026, after two days of deliberation, on charges tied to false statements. He lied to investigators at the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about his contacts and information-sharing.

The January 31, 2025 indictment alleged a conspiracy to commit economic espionage and alleged that Rogers shared trade-secret information with Chinese intelligence-linked co-conspirators posing as graduate students at a PRC university. The alleged conspiracy began as early as May 2013 and continued until on or about January 30, 2025. It also alleged that Rogers lied on February 4, 2020, to the Fed’s inspector general about his access to and passage of sensitive information. The espionage and trade-secret allegations remained allegations; the jury convicted him on false-statement charges.

The Federal Reserve Board’s Division of International Finance handles basic research, policy analysis and reporting on foreign economic activity, U.S. external trade and capital flows, and developments in international financial markets and institutions.

The Justice Department treated the case as part of its broader national-security effort. The indictment said Rogers had leveraged his position at the Fed to pass sensitive financial information to Chinese government intelligence officers. It also said China held about $816 billion in U.S. foreign debt as of October 2024.