A former senior Federal Reserve official was sentenced Wednesday to more than three years in prison for lying to investigators about sharing sensitive information with Chinese contacts, in a case that highlighted concerns over foreign espionage targeting U.S. financial institutions.

John Rogers, who served as a senior adviser in the Fed’s division of international finance, was convicted earlier this year of making false statements during a 2020 interview with the Federal Reserve’s Office of Inspector General. He denied releasing restricted information to unauthorized parties. However, a federal jury acquitted him of a more serious charge of conspiring to commit economic espionage, rejecting prosecutors’ claims that he knowingly passed confidential data to Chinese intelligence operatives.

U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich sentenced Rogers to 38 months in prison, citing his prominent role at the central bank and a pattern of sharing sensitive materials with contacts in China. “This is far from the ordinary false-statement case,” Friedrich said during sentencing.

The case underscored longstanding government concerns that the Federal Reserve is a prime target for foreign intelligence agencies. Prosecutors portrayed Rogers’s interactions as part of a broader contest between the United States and China over financial intelligence. The trial also revealed a personal narrative involving Rogers’s pursuit of companionship in China, which ultimately led to his departure from the Fed and criminal conviction.

According to prosecutors, Rogers established a relationship beginning in 2013 with a Chinese handler using the alias Hummin Lee, who posed as an academic at a conference. Several years later, Rogers met and married a woman in China, with Lee becoming a central figure in their lives despite cultural, language, and age differences. During a 2018 sabbatical in Shanghai, Rogers increased his meetings with Lee, who allegedly sought access to sensitive Federal Reserve information. Prosecutors said the two used coded language in communications, referring to their meetings as “classes.”

Rogers’s defense team argued that he believed Lee was a fellow scholar and close friend rather than a spy. His attorney described him as intellectually capable but naive, saying Rogers was “book smart” but vulnerable in personal matters. Rogers himself testified that after the trial he realized Lee was a covert intelligence agent and felt he had been “duped.”

Following his resignation from the Fed, Rogers accepted a teaching position at a Chinese university, where he received substantial compensation. The case reflects broader tensions relating to economic espionage and the challenges U.S. agencies face in safeguarding critical financial information.