Ex-senior adviser at NIAID indicted over COVID-19 records
Dr. David Morens worked as a senior adviser to NIAID's Office of the Director from 2006 through 2022.
Washington — A former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is facing charges over an alleged scheme to hide federal records during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
Dr. David Morens, 78, was indicted by a federal grand jury earlier this month and charged with five counts, including conspiracy, destruction of records in federal investigations, and concealment of records. He made his initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge Monday and is set to be arraigned next week.
Prosecutors allege that Morens and two unnamed, unindicted co-conspirators worked together to defraud the U.S. by shielding federal records related to the pandemic from the public. The first co-conspirator, identified as "co-conspirator 1," served as the president and CEO of a New York-based nonprofit group that received a grant in 2014 titled "Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence."
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China, received a subaward from the New York organization on the coronavirus grant, prosecutors said. The second co-conspirator is described in the indictment as a physician, scientist and professor who worked for an academic institute that received federal grants.
Emails released in 2024 by the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic indicate that the New York-based organization is the EcoHealth Alliance and co-conspirator 1 is its president, Peter Daszak.