A former Lehigh University professor and his wife have been sentenced to prison for defrauding NASA.

Lehigh engineering professor Yujie Ding and his wife, Yuliya Zotova, told NASA that their startup company would develop a sensor to track climate change. (Lehighvalleylive.com file photo)

Yujie Ding and his wife, Yuliya Zotova, must also pay fines and restitution for the scheme targeting the space agency's Small Business Innovation Research Program.

U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Bartle III on Wednesday sentenced Ding to a year plus one day in prison, and ordered him to pay a $3,000 fine and $72,000 in restitution, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a news release.

Zotova was sentenced last week to three months in prison, in addition to a fine and restitution.

The pair in August 2009 and July 2010 submitted proposal to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration program seeking funding for scientific research, the federal prosecutor's office announced.

"The defendants' proposals claimed they would conduct the research at their business, ArkLight, and would subcontract some of the work to Lehigh University, where Ding was employed as a professor," the release states. "Instead, the defendants used ArkLight as a front to funnel federal grant money to themselves for research performed by students and others working under Ding's supervision at his university lab."

The fraud involved invoices sent via interstate electronic communication for research that a jury found ArkLight had not done.

The case was investigated by NASA's Office of Inspector General, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth F. Abrams and Gregory B. David.

Ding is no longer listed among the faculty at Lehigh in Bethlehem.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.