Boston – A researcher from Harvard University accused of smuggling embryos of frog claws in the United States was accused on Wednesday for additional positions.
Kseniia Petrova, a scientist born in Russia who conducted cancer investigation for Harvard’s faculty, was accused on Wednesday by a Federal Grand Jury in Boston for a position of concealment of a material fact, a position of false declaration and a position of smuggling of goods in the United States. She had been accused of smuggling in May.
Despite additional charges, Petrova will remain in prior release to the trial.
A Petrova lawyer could not be contacted to comment.
He returned from a vacation in France in February when he was interrogated by Customs and Border Protection of the United States at Boston Logan International Airport.
Petrova, 30, had stopped in a laboratory specialized in junctioning sections of frog embryos and obtained a sampling package for research. Federal officials on the social media website X accused her of lying on “bringing substances” to the country and claimed that he planned to smuggle the embryos through customs without declaring them.
She told The Associated Press in an interview in April that she did not realize that the articles needed to be declared and that she was not trying to sneak into anything in the country.
Petrova was told that his visa was being canceled and detained by immigration officials in Vermont after his initial arrest. She presented a request in search of her release and was briefly sent to an ice installation in Louisiana, after which a judge ruled that the actions of immigration officers were illegal. In May, she was accused of a smuggling charge.
If it is convicted of the smuggling charge, Petrova faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $ 250,000. It also faces a sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $ 250,000 for hiding positions of material facts and false statements.
