He took public funds and falsified his data. Are they gonna make him pay back the $19 million?

As a former University of Maryland student, I’m incensed by this story. From Retraction Watch, this story about a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology:

The ORI finding stated Eckert “engaged in research misconduct in research supported by” every NIH grant on which he served as principal investigator, totaling more than $19 million. The finding also lists multiple “Center Core Grants” worth hundreds of millions for shared resources and facilities at research centers. . . .

According to ORI’s findings, Eckert erased a band in one of the paper’s figures “to falsely show a favorable result.”

In the 13 papers and two grant applications, Eckert used and reused images “representing unrelated experiments, with or without manipulating them, and falsely relabeling them as data representing different proteins and/or experimental results,” ORI found.

I don’t really know what to think about the Center Core Grants, but the 19 million dollars he should have to pay back! OK, maybe he doesn’t have $19 million cash on hand, but there’s gotta be a system for this, right? Maybe they start by repoing his car, freezing his bank account, and selling his house, then he’s allowed some reasonable amount to live on . . . hmmm, it appears that the NIH predoc salary level is 28,224 per year, so they could let him keep that much . . . then he could try to come up with a payment plan. I dunno. They throw drug dealers in prison, but that would just cost the taxpayer more money. Better to just put an ankle monitor on him and take away his internet access. . . .

Ummm, let’s read on:

Eckert agreed to forgo contracting with the federal government or receiving government funding for eight years . . . Eckert also agreed not to serve on any advisory or peer review committees for the U.S. Public Health Service, which includes the NIH, for eight years.

OK, maybe after eight years if he shows some evidence of rehabilitation, maybe. But what about the $19 million? Paying that back should be the absolute minimum requirement, no?