Federal prosecutors have charged a former University of Florida professor with concealing support he received from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) while collecting $1.75 million in U.S. taxpayer grant money for research that benefited a firm he secretly founded in China. Lin Yang, 43, lived in Tampa, Florida, when he committed the alleged offenses, which include six counts of wire fraud and four counts of making false statements, according to an indictment unsealed on Feb. 3. “According to the indictment, the defendant intentionally deceived both his employer and the federal government in order to obtain more than a million dollars in research funding. Rather than being open about his ties to the People’s Republic of China, the defendant chose to conceal them, in the process advancing both the Chinese government’s strategic goals and his own financial interests,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said in a statement. Authorities allege that Yang, an …