Biswamohan Pani, Ex-Intel Employee Pleads Guilty To Theft Charges

By Gerry Shih

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A former Intel Corp employee who allegedly stole from the chipmaker documents worth hundreds of millions of dollars pleaded guilty on Friday to five counts of wire fraud.

Federal prosecutors in Boston had alleged that Biswamohan Pani, 36, downloaded some of Intel's "most valuable" design and manufacturing documents in June 2008, in his final days as an engineer in a Massachusetts facility.

Intel was not aware at the time of the alleged downloads that Pani had already sought a position and begun working at Advanced Micro Devices, Intel's largest rival in the chip industry.

Pani acted alone and there was no evidence that he was instructed by AMD to carry out the theft - nor was AMD aware of his actions, prosecutors said. In court filings, Intel estimated the company secrets to be worth at least $200 million to $400 million.

AMD fired Pani in 2008.

"AMD was not accused of wrongdoing, and the FBI has stated that there is no evidence that AMD had any involvement in or awareness of Mr. Pani's alleged actions," said Drew Prairie, a spokesman for AMD.

Pani faces up to 20 years in prison on each count, and is scheduled to be sentenced on August 8.

A lawyer for Pani did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.

(Reporting By Gerry Shih; Editing by Richard Chang)

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Comments

[wrhurst]

11:44 PM on 04/08/2012

I actually worked at that facility... He is screwed!

[ADRealist]

02:05 PM on 04/08/2012

Too bad the engineer didn't take even the most basic precautions to not get caught.

He thought it would be that easy to just log in, download millions of dollars of data, then walk away with it?

Apparently having a wealthy education doesn't always buy common sense. Or that could just be a temporary side effect of greed.

[Brandon R Lucas]

08:04 AM on 04/08/2012

wow wrong article huffingting post you need to make a better app for the tablets!!!!

[skiplee65]

10:36 PM on 04/07/2012

On the downside of this also is the fact that although AMD may not be held accountable for all this and direct involvement, they may still be able to benefit from the stolen technology. One can only hope that is not the case.

[oceanview136]

10:13 PM on 04/07/2012

The thief got exactly what he deserved !! He now has NO career, and faces the possibility of a very long prison term !!

[rojcar]

05:48 PM on 04/07/2012

I hate thieves! and the world has so many of them.

[Lechiffre]

05:03 PM on 04/07/2012

Biswamohan ? aehm .. Gesundheit !

[speedntktz]

01:31 PM on 04/07/2012

Just proves its much safer to steal it from a computer in Shanghai.