Former Google and Uber autonomous vehicle engineer Anthony Levandowski has reached a plea deal with prosecutors and pled guilty to stealing trade secrets.
According to court documents filed on March 19 and viewed by The Verge, Levandowski has admitted that he obtained and stored thousands of sensitive documents from Google’s self-driving car program, Project Chauffeur, “with the intent to use them for his personal benefit after his departure from the company.”
“Specifically, on Dec.11, 2015, Levandowski downloaded approximately 14,000 files from an internal, password-protected Google server known as ‘SVN,’ which was hosted on Google’s network,” a statement from the U.S. Attorney reads.
Related: Uber CEO Says “It Sure Looked Like” Levandowski Took Sensitive Files From Google
Levandowski was indicted by a federal grand jury in August 2019 with 33 counts of trade secret theft. He has pled guilty to just one of those counts in exchange for prosecutors dropping the other 32 charges. The plea agreement could see him face a prison term of 24-30 months and he has also agreed to pay Waymo US$756,499 in restitution, Gizmodo reports.
Shortly after stealing documents from Google, Levandowski left the technology giant and went on to form autonomous truck company Otto. That company was soon purchased by Uber and Levandowski was brought on by the ride-hailing company to lead its self-driving program. Uber and Google’s Waymo division ultimately reached a settlement that saw Uber pay more than $244 million.
News of Levandowski pleading guilty to trade secret theft comes shortly after he was ordered to pay Google $179 million over a contract dispute after he helped poach engineers from Waymo. Levandowski has filed for bankruptcy protection.
