The former leader of a Manhattan nonprofit, known for conducting high-stakes research at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, is claiming to be “unemployed” and “financially struggling” in a $3 million legal action against his previous workplace.

Dr. Peter Daszak, who once presided over EcoHealth Alliance, was prohibited earlier this year from acquiring federal funds until 2029 after failing to report potentially hazardous coronavirus genetic enhancements to the authorities.

According to documents filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the board of directors instructed Daszak, aged 59, to dismiss all 26 employees of the nonprofit in December, and subsequently terminated his position.

The lawsuit states that his severance pay was not provided, leaving him “unemployed and now poor.”

EcoHealth’s 2024 tax records indicate that Daszak had previously earned $443,590.

The House Oversight Committee’s Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic uncovered evidence last year indicating that EcoHealth and Daszak, who worked there 24 years, “willingly” and “repeatedly” violated several requirements of a more than $4 million National Institutes of Health grant during his work in China.

“Given that a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely origin of COVID-19, EcoHealth and its former President should never again receive a single cent from the U.S. taxpayer,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said at the time.

EcoHealth Alliance closed its doors in April but former staffers led by Daszak immediately launched a non-profit with a similar mission, Nature.Health.Global, through which he authored a paper in August on “widespread spillover risk of a group of coronaviruses” from Chinese pig farms. The organization has yet to submit financials to the IRS and did not respond to request on their funding or how much they pay Daszak.

Daszak has also been petitioning to impeach Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., and recently organized a protest in Washington D.C against what he claims is the Trump administration’s “war on science.”

Daszak’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.