A former high-ranking Federal Reserve employee was seduced by an alleged Chinese spy on an Asian dating website and blackmailed over explicit nude photos, new reports reveal.

John Harold Rogers, 65, was ambushed and arrested by FBI agents in January of 2025 while casually walking his dog through his leafy suburban Washington, DC neighborhood.

The dramatic swoop came just days before the disgraced Rogers was set to fly to China on a family trip alongside his wife and daughter, according to a CNBC report.

The economist beat an espionage charge, but he couldn't lie his way past federal agents.

Rogers was found guilty of making false statements to investigators and was slapped with a 38-month prison sentence in July.

'John Rogers spent years secretly funneling sensitive Federal Reserve information to Chinese spies, then looked investigators in the eye and lied about it. And when that wasn't enough, he lied again under oath at trial,' US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement. 

Federal prosecutor Nicholas Hunter told jurors that the facts of the case read like a 'spy novel.'

'There was sex. There was money, manipulation, secret meetings with shady characters in China, fake identities, lies, trickery, and deceit,' Hunter said.

Despite holding a sensitive role overseeing research in the Fed's international finance division, the lonely single father turned to AsianDating.com after his four grown children left home, sending explicit nude photos to online matches.

His search for romance proved disastrous when he attended a 2013 Fed conference in Shanghai and crossed paths with 'Hummin Lee' - an alias for Chinese intelligence operative Jin Chuan.

Rogers' new menacing acquaintance started to become deeply involved in his life, sending gifts and aiding him in starting a relationship known as Yu Liu, a Chinese woman who was 24 years younger than him.

He met her on the Asian dating website in 2016.

The whirlwind romance moved with speed, with Lee funding trips and producing a divorce certificate in just seven hours when Yu Yu's ex-husband demanded $12,000 to sign papers.

After a swift pregnancy and proposal, the couple wed in Hong Kong in March 2018.

Lee orchestrated the entire union - planning the wedding, witnessing their prenup, and even joining them at the hospital for their daughter's birth.

'I owe everything to him,' Rogers told investigators. 'The baby wouldn't have happened, the relationship with my wife wouldn't have happened… and I love him like a brother.'

Lee would reportedly ask Rogers for sensitive information about his work - inquiring about US financial policy, China-US relations and details in trade policy. 

Roger shared those details with him.

The marriage rapidly imploded after another woman moved into Rogers' Virginia home, sparking a violent brawl between the two and a physical altercation. 

Back on the hunt online, the economist used his official Fed-issued phone to send explicit nude photos to Instagram models - including naked snaps taken inside Federal Reserve headquarters.

When extortionists threatened to send the graphic snaps to Fed bosses and kidnap his young daughter, Rogers alerted central bank officials in 2020. It is unclear who is implicated in the blackmail.

The confession accidentally exposed his Chinese contacts to federal investigators, whom prosecutors say he repeatedly lied to under questioning.

He resigned in 2021 and moved to Shanghai to teach at Fudan University before the feds finally caught up with him and he was arrested. 

A lawyer for Rogers said in a statement that he denies the allegations in the indictment and that his client will have 'comment at a later date.'