Former Fed adviser sentenced for lying about China ties to investigators
A former senior Fed adviser got 38 months for lying about passing restricted information to people tied to China’s intelligence network. He spent 11 years in the central bank’s international finance unit.
A former senior Federal Reserve adviser was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison on Wednesday after Judge Dabney Friedrich found that John Harold Rogers lied to investigators about sharing restricted central bank information with people tied to China’s intelligence apparatus. Judge Dabney Friedrich also ordered 12 months of supervised release, rejecting prosecutors’ request for a 60-month term.
Rogers, 64, worked in the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of International Finance from 2010 to 2021, a unit responsible for 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. That access gave him a window into sensitive economic thinking at the central bank, and prosecutors alleged that he used it to pass information to people working for China’s intelligence and security apparatus.
A federal jury convicted Rogers on February 3, 2026, after two days of deliberation on false-statement charges tied to interviews with inspectors general for the Federal Reserve System and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The indictment charged Rogers with lying on February 4, 2020, when questioned by the Federal Reserve Board’s Office of Inspector General about his access to sensitive information, its passage to others and his ties to co-conspirators.
The Justice Department arrested Rogers in early 2025, alleging that he conspired to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China. Prosecutors alleged that he developed a clandestine relationship with a Chinese intelligence operative in 2017 and began responding in 2018 to information requests from people posing as graduate students but working for China’s intelligence and security apparatus, including meetings in Chinese hotel rooms. At sentencing, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said Rogers had spent years funneling sensitive Federal Reserve information to Chinese spies and then lied under oath when confronted.
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