Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho is charged with buying information for one of China's top nuclear power companies. (Knox County Sheriff's Office)An engineer accused of stealing nuclear secrets for China is swimming in hidden cash he could use to flee the U.S., making it too risky to allow him to go free pending trial, a judge has ruled.
Chief U.S. District Judge Tom Varlan rebuffed a full-court press by the defense team for Szuhsiung "Allen" Ho -- including promises of a $3 million bond and a private security firm -- to win Ho's freedom pending trial in the nation's first case in which the Chinese government is accused of using an agent to buy American nuclear know-how.
Ho, his firm Energy Technology International, and Chinese nuclear power plant China General Nuclear Power were indicted in April in U.S. District Court on charges of a plot to lure nuclear experts in the U.S. into providing information to allow China to develop and produce nuclear material based on American technology and below the radar of the U.S. government.
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