The government asked a federal court in Indianapolis to seal a status report on the case involving fired IU professor and cybersecurity expert XiaoFeng Wang.
In early October, judge Tanya Walton Pratt directed the government to file the report within 90 days.
"The status report contains confidential information, not known to the public, regarding the status of an ongoing FBI investigation," says the filing, submitted to the court Monday.
The judge's October order for the status report came at the same time she unsealed the warrant used to search Wang's homes in Bloomington and Carmel in March. On the day of the law enforcement raids, IU fired the tenured professor in a letter from the provost.
IU had also fired Wang's wife, Nianli Ma, a library staff member, without explanation.
Neither Wang nor his wife has been charged with a crime.
According to communications last spring between Wang and IU administrators, obtained by WFIU/WTIU News, Wang had been placed on leave while the university investigated an accusation that he had mislabeled the principal investigator for a grant and failed to disclose co-authors.
The warrant, unsealed in October, showed that the agents searching Wang's homes were looking for funding applications, including drafts, and submissions to the National Science Foundation. An inventory of 42 seized items lists phones, computers and hard drives as well as passports and plane tickets.
Federal officials explained they were pursuing evidence of fraud relating to federal program funding, wire fraud, and making false statements to a government official.
Some elements of the case, including an affidavit, remain under seal.
