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Ex-Googler Levandowski gets 18 months in prison for trade-secret theft:
Ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski yesterday was sentenced to 18 months in prison following his March guilty plea for stealing a confidential document related to Google's self-driving technology.
Levandowski's lawyers last week asked a judge in US District Court for the Northern District of California to let him off without any prison time, arguing that a year of home confinement, a fine, restitution, and community service would be sufficient punishment. The federal government asked for a 27-month prison sentence.
While handing down the 18-month sentence, US District Judge William Alsup said that a sentence without imprisonment would give "a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets," according to a Reuters report. Levandowski was originally charged with 33 counts of stealing trade secrets by downloading thousands of documents to his personal laptop in December 2015 shortly before he left Google to work on his startup, Otto, which was acquired by Uber for a reported $680 million in August 2016. In a plea deal, Levandowksi admitted to stealing one document called "Chauffeur TL weekly updates," which tracked the progress of Google's "Project Chauffeur" that later became Waymo. Prosecutors dropped the other charges.
Levandowski won't have to serve the sentence right away, as Alsup ruled that he can go to prison after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, according to Reuters and other news outlets.
Levandowski also must pay $756K to Waymo
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:56PM (3 children)
Only a white guy wouldn't get the book thrown at him. I hope he ends up at a PMITA not one of those lovely white collar places. Given the short sentence he really needs his shit packed to send a message to other pasty privileged assholes that just because the sentence is short doesn't mean it will be a walk in the park.
Said as a white guy myself, who prefers honesty and integrity, even in a world of corporate shitbags.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:13PM
Hang onto your huwhite privilege. You might need to wield it when the mobile guillotine comes for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:13PM
It looks like he is getting a sentence that is appropriate for what he did. Not everything should be 35 years in solitary confinement in a super max.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:28PM
rape for making a copy of some stupid document? oh please. and fuck google anyways.