BALTIMORE SUN - A senior government scientist originally from Baltimore pleaded guilty yesterday to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed fees from the same drug manufacturer whose public-private research collaboration he oversaw. As part of his agreement with federal prosecutors, Pearson "Trey" Sunderland III, chief of the geriatric psychiatry branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, is expected to receive a sentence of two years' supervised probation and must forfeit $300,000 in illegal proceeds and reimbursements.
His ethical misdeeds came to light after a series of newspaper stories led to a congressional investigation into the federal government's premier collection of research centers based in Bethesda.
With proper disclosure and approval, NIH scientists are allowed to receive outside income. But the discovery of dozens of private financial arrangements between drug companies and publicly employed scientists has embarrassed the agency in recent years and led to yesterday's plea. "This case is not a technical mistake," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said at a news conference after Sunderland's plea. "This case is not an honest mistake."
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