An ex-Intel engineer who pilfered valuable trade secrets from the company before leaving to take a job with archrival Advanced Micro Devices copped to five counts of wire fraud this week. Biswamohan Pani, 36, left Intel in June 2008 and was indicted by a federal grand jury in November of that year for downloading files related to the chip maker's Itanium processor technology.
Pani was fired by AMD after he was charged. Federal prosecutors said the engineer acted alone and that there was no evidence that he had been encouraged to steal Intel trade secrets by AMD. An AMD spokesman said Friday that the company did not have "any involvement in or awareness of Mr. Pani's alleged actions."
Though the original FBI affidavit seeking to indict Pani claimed the information he stole "was worth more than $1 billion in research and development costs," in more recent court filings, Intel has placed the value of the trade secrets at between $200 million and $400 million.
Pani was working in Intel's Hudson, Mass. Office and had reportedly received poor performance reviews prior to leaving the company for a job at AMD that he was offered in March 2008. Investigators alleged that he "kept delaying" his departure from Intel, and was supposed to be on vacation and not actively working on projects when he "remotely accessed and downloaded top secret Intel documents from the [Intel] system between June 8 and June 10, 2008."
According to an ABC News report at the time, the indictment further asserted that "Pani planned to use this information to advance his career at AMD or elsewhere by drawing on it when the opportunity arose, whether with his employer's knowledge or not."
Pani faces up to 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud he pleaded guilty to, according to Reuters. His sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 8.
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