U.S. Attorney's Office Dismisses Criminal Case Against Former Lilly Scientists

It was just another example of gross misconduct on the part of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Indiana under Joe Hogsett's leadership, while at the same time sweeping massive public corruption matters under the rug. More than a year ago, I questioned why Hogsett was devoting substantial government resources to prosecute two Chinese immigrants who worked as scientists for Eli Lilly for allegedly stealing company trade secrets. At the time Hogsett announced the charges against Guoqing Cao and Shuyu “Dan” Li, he admitted he had no proof that either man had profited from the alleged theft. The two were treated like hardened criminals and locked up for months. Now the U.S. Attorney's Office is dismissing charges against the two. From the Indianapolis Star:

. . . The U.S. attorney’s office is asking a federal judge to dismiss all charges filed against two former Eli Lilly and Co. scientists accused of stealing the company’s trade secrets and passing them on to a competitor in China.

The decision comes a little more than a year after a federal grand jury indicted Eli Lilly’s former senior biologists, Guoqing Cao and Shuyu Li, on charges of stealing nine drug discovery trade secrets from 2010 to 2012 and passing the proprietary information to one of China’s largest drug companies, Jiangu Hengrui Medicine Co. in Shanghai.

The U.S. attorney’s office did not give details as to why the decision was made but said in a news release that it “was based on a variety of factors that occurred throughout the history of the case.” The agency said it will have no further comment.

The motion to dismiss was filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana . . . 

How many private business owners can get the government to use the hammer of the criminal justice system to resolve civil disputes with former employees? Watch Eli Lilly dump big bucks into Hogsett's mayoral campaign for services rendered. And thanks, Joe, for proving that the justice system in America is just as corrupt as Red China's.