A former top-level Google engineer was found guilty on 33 accounts related to stealing and attempting to sell company secrets. A federal prosecutor on Monday appeared before the press and announced the verdict.
Google engineer took secret files related to Google’s self-driving car
According to media reports, Google’s Anthony Levandowski, a former top-level Google engineer downloaded confidential information from its mainframe database and sold it rivals company’s or tried to benefit from them in other ways. The former star engineer downloaded a total of 14000 files.
In 2017 Google’s legal team filed a lawsuit against Uber for being complicit with the accused in the theft of trade secrets after it bought OTTO an automotive tech startup by Levandowski for 680 million dollars. Before the lawsuit got filed the ex-Google employee started working for UBER
The Google engineer sudden departure from the company and the startup of OTTO in 2016, coupled with other unusual activities confirmed Google’s suspicions regarding his involvement.
The Case Ended in A Settlement
In 2018 the case went to court for four days with Travis Kalanick the then CEO of UBER as a lead testimony against Anthony. During the trial, the accused continuously invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid self-incrimination. The trial eventually came to an end with both the tech giants reaching a settlement agreement while the FBI was ordered to conduct a detail investigation regarding Levandowski involvement in the theft process.
Charges Formally Read by DOJ Attorney
On Tuesday the U.S. Attorney David Anderson at a press conference in San Jose confirmed that the former Google employee had been indicted on 33 accounts related to stealing trade secrets.
In 2018 during the course of the investigation, Anthony Levandowski launched another tech company called pronto. He employed all the veteran staff form Uber, Otto, and Google.
Also Read
