A September 2015 jury trial has been set for two scientists from China accused of taking seeds from a private Junction City research facility and passing them off to a visiting delegation from China.
A scheduling conference was held Tuesday before a federal judge in Kansas City for Weiqiang Zhang, who had been living in Manhattan, and Wengui Yan.
A federal grand jury indicted the two in December on conspiracy to steal trade secrets and theft of trade secrets in a case involving rice seeds taken from Ventria Bioscience in Junction City.
Pretrial motions are due by November 28th of this year, with a response deadline of January 12th next year. A motion hearing will be held next February, with a final pretrial conference set for September eighth. The jury trial is set for September 14th of next year and is expected to last 30 days.
Zhang worked at the Junction City facility and Yan worked at a federal rice resarch center in Arkansas