Former Ford employee pleads guilty to stealing $50M in trade secrets

[wickedstangs]

<p>Filed under: <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/government-legal/" rel="tag">Government/Legal</a>, <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/ford/" rel="tag">Ford</a></p><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/23/former-ford-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-50m-in-trade-sec/#continued"><img border="0" align="right" vspace="4" hspace="0" class="right border" alt="Ford" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2010/11/ford-logo-250-1290606259.jpg" /></a>According to the Department of Justice, 49 year-old Mike Yu has pleaded guilty to two counts of theft of trade secrets. Yu worked as a product engineer for <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/make/ford">Ford</a> for 10 years before accepting a job with another company, but when he left the Blue Oval, he took more than his family photos with him when he walked out the door. The engineer copied over 4,000 Ford documents onto an external hard drive before letting the company know of his new employer. Those documents included proprietary information on everything from engine and transmission mounting designs to electrical systems and full body shells. Yu began working for Beijing Automotive Company in 2008.<br />
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Yu returned to the United States in November of that same year, and was arrested upon his arrival. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found a Beijing Automotive Company laptop among Yu's possessions at that time with 41 Ford design specification documents on its hard drive. Yu had apparently accessed those documents while working for the company.<br />
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Under his plea agreement, Yu faces up to six and a half years in prison and a $150,000 fine in addition to an agreed loss amount of between $50 million and $100 million. The former engineer will be deported after his prison time is up. <a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/23/former-ford-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-50m-in-trade-sec/#continued">Follow the jump</a> to read the official government statement.<br />
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[Source: The Department of Justice]<p><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/24/former-ford-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-50m-in-trade-sec/" rel="bookmark">Continue reading <em>Former Ford employee pleads guilty to stealing $50M in trade secrets</em></a></p><p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/24/former-ford-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-50m-in-trade-sec/">Former Ford employee pleads guilty to stealing $50M in trade secrets</a> originally appeared on <a href="http://www.autoblog.com">Autoblog</a> on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 13:32:00 EST. Please see our <a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/">terms for use of feeds</a>.</p><h6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"></h6><a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/24/former-ford-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-50m-in-trade-sec/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry">Permalink</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/19732021/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email">Email this</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/24/former-ford-employee-pleads-guilty-to-stealing-50m-in-trade-sec/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry">Comments</a>


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[sdsubzero4]

He should get the max prison time. Too bad he can't be treated as a foreign combatant for industrial espionage. Max prison time and force China to pay the loss amount.

 

[Nawztradamus]

No big surprise there. At SEMA, you see a horde of chinese takiing literally thousands of pictures of a product from every angle. Then it's not too long before you see a cheap ass knockoff of an American product.