Glendale man who stole trade secrets from former employer gets prison time
A 45-year-old Glendale man was sentenced to one year in federal prison for stealing trade secrets from his former employer, a Pasadena aircraft avionics company, and distributing them to three competitors in a revenge plot after he was fired, officials said.
A judge last year convicted electrical engineer Derek Wai Hung Tam Sing of 32 counts of violating the Economic Espionage Act when he distributed trade secrets of Rogerson Kratos and instructed competitors to reverse engineer the company’s products, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Sing — who was reportedly late in arriving to work and on completing assignments and had an unprofessional attitude — was fired in 2012, officials said. Prosecutors said he’d created mugs and bottles referring to company employees as “imbeciles,” and distributed them to his colleagues.
Join the conversation on Facebook >>
Though he’d signed a confidentiality agreement that prohibited him from disclosing proprietary information and trade secrets, he took home “a trove” of documents that included at least 27 schematics and failed to return them after his termination, officials said.
In 2013, Sing used email addresses created under a fake name and the public Wi-Fi at Starbucks to send the stolen trade secrets to competitors — both foreign and within the United States — that produced avionics.
A judge ruled that Sing illegally sent seven schematics — four of which he possessed illegally — to three different companies, along with a document explaining the importance of the information and with instructions to reverse engineer the products.
“If not for one of the competitors that received the proprietary secrets alerting authorities, Mr. Sing might have caused a devastating blow to his former employer,” U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said in a statement. “Intellectual property is the lifeblood of the American economy and provides critical value to businesses and employees.”
--
Alene Tchekmedyian, alene.tchekmedyian@latimes.com
Twitter: @atchek
ALSO
Laura Friedman, Ardy Kassakhian criticize, defend contributions in state Assembly race
Perseverance pays off for Hoover High grads
Glendale High graduation ceremony stresses friendship, inclusion
