Ex-Intel Engineer Indicted For Alleged Theft Of Company Secrets

Ex-Intel Engineer Indicted For Alleged Theft Of Company Secrets

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By Michele Masterson, ChannelWeb

5:25 PM EST Thu. Nov. 06, 2008

Former Intel design engineer Biswamohan Pani was charged with four counts of wire fraud Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Boston. The new counts come on top of an earlier charge in August of trade secret theft, which allegedly occurred when he left Intel for AMD in June. The trade secret information was alleged to be worth $1 billion in research and development costs. Pani was reportedly a designer with the Itanium processor team.

Pani announced his resignation in May from Intel, telling his employer that he had taken a job at a hedge fund, but began working for AMD in the beginning of June. According to The Worcester Telegram & Gazette, the indictment accuses Pani of accessing Intel's computer network and downloading 13 "top-secret" Intel documents in addition to other confidential and proprietary information. The pilfered information reportedly included information about accessing encrypted documents without being connected to Intel's network.

An earlier affidavit filed in late August alleged that the FBI discovered 100 pages plus 19 design drawings during a raid. Pani was subsequently charged with one count of theft of trade secrets.

AMD was not aware of the purported crimes, The Worcester Telegram & Gazette said, and did not get Intel information from Pani.

Currently, Pani is out on $100,000 bail. If he is convicted he could be looking at a jail term of up to 10 years on the trade secret indictment, another 20 years for each of the other four wire fraud charges and a fine of up to $250,000 on each count, the paper said, quoting the U.S. Attorney's office.