On July 17, 2019, law.com published a commentary titled:“Daily Dicta: Prosecutions Don’t get much More Pathetic Than This Case Against a Louisiana Scientist.”

“This case” refers to the prosecution of Dr. Ehab Meselhe, a prominent Egyptian American professor of the Department of River-Coastal Science and Engineering at Tulane University.  There is a second defendant in the case, Mr. Kelin Hu (胡克林), a computer scientist and research assistant professor at Tulane University who is a U.S. permanent resident born in China.

Both men were charged by the U.S. government for conspiracy and attempt to steal trade secrets (a computer simulation program that models how the Mississippi River Delta might evolve due to environmental changes and projects the impact of proposed restoration efforts) and to commit computer fraud and abuse on May 29, 2019 (case number 3:19-cr-00061). According to amedia report, Mr. Hu was dramatically escorted from the Water Institute of the Gulf building by Baton Rouge police officers and FBI agents.

After the U.S. government admitted that “it cannot meet its burden of proof in this matter”on July 15, the case was dismissed by the Louisiana Middle District Court.  “I was a federal prosecutor for 20 years in New Orleans, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Dr. Meselhe's lawyer.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has testified in Congress on July 23 that The FBI has over 1,000 investigations open into attempted intellectual property theft, nearly all of them involving Chinese.