And to those that think Mr. Shapiro's idea of letting anyone into Redmond to read the code read this:
New Charges in Case of Stolen Lucent Trade Secrets
April 11, 2002 19:25:13 (ET)
NEWARK, N.J., April 11 (Reuters) - A federal grand jury on Thursday handed up new charges against two former Lucent Technologies Inc (LU,Trade). scientists and a third man, the alleged mastermind of a plot to steal secrets from Lucent to sell to a Chinese state-owned telecom, authorities said.
Xu Kai, 33, and Lin Hai, 30, former high-level scientists for Murray Hill, New Jersey-based Lucent, and Cheng Yong-Qing, 37, are to be arraigned on an additional 14 counts of possessing trade secrets and nine counts of wire fraud on Monday.
The trio, all Chinese nationals living in New Jersey, were charged last May 31 with one count of conspiring to steal trade secrets and possess stolen trade secrets, punishable by 10 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine under the Economic Espionage Act.
Each count could add five years in prison and if convicted on all counts, each man could be liable for as much as $6 million in fines, Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Christie said.
The charges stem from government allegations that the men stole key components of Lucent's PathStar server, a computer voice and data transmission system that the Chinese scientists had helped develop for the company.
More than 1,000 e-mail messages, seized by the FBI through court orders and warrants, and other evidence will prove the three were setting up a joint venture to sell a system using PathStar's technology to state-owned Datang Telecom Technology Co. of Beijing, Christie said.
The new indictment claims that in September 2000, the suspects demonstrated a prototype for Datang representatives in the basement of Lin's Scotch Plains, New Jersey, home.
James Plaisted, the attorney for Cheng, the former vice president of Village Networks, an optical networking vendor, said his client will plead not guilty on Monday, following not guilty pleas entered by all the men to the first indictment.
Lucent has said it lost $80 million due to the theft.
The new indictment names four more companies as victims whose software or circuit boards were used under licensing agreements in PathStar. They include ZiaTech Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Intel Corp. (INTC,Trade) of San Luis Obispo, California.
The suspects are free on bail pending a trial scheduled to open on Sept. 24.
JFD |
