“Taxpayers expect and deserve that federal grant dollars will be used efficiently and honestly,” said U.S. attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, Matthew G.T. Martin in a statement. “May this serve as a lesson that the use of false or fabricated data in grant applications or reports is completely unacceptable.”
The allegations against the school were made in a lawsuit by research analyst Joseph Thomas, who worked in Duke’s pulmonary division. Thomas claimed in the suit that Erin Potts-Kant, another researcher at the university, had fabricated data connected up to $200 million in federal research grants.
Dr. Vincent Price
Thomas filed the lawsuit under the False Claims Act, which allows individuals to sue on behalf of the government, according to The New York Times.
Under the act, the plaintiff may receive a portion of the damages.
Thomas’s lawsuit claimed that the fraud took place from 2006 and 2013, however, the Department of Justice recently announced that the allegations actually covered a longer time frame, from 2006 to 2018.
