Two Engineers Found Guilty of Stealing Trade Secrets from Goodyear
Washington, D.C. – A federal jury has convicted Clark Alan Roberts, 47, and Sean Edward Howley, 39, both former engineers with Wyko Tire Technology Incorporated, of stealing trade secrets from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The verdict was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney William C. Killian for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
The jury found Roberts and Howley guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, one count of trade secret theft, one count of unlawful photographing of trade secrets, three counts of transmittal of trade secrets, one count of possession of trade secrets, two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
“Unable to create an effective design on their own, these engineers stole trade secrets from a competitor in order to fulfill a contract,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “We will not allow the hard work and resources businesses put into product development to be compromised by individuals who unlawfully obtain protected secrets.”
The evidence presented in court showed that Wyko secured a $1.2 million contract in early 2007 with the Haohua South China Guilin Rubber Company Limited (HHSC), a Chinese tire manufacturing company located in Guilin, Peoples Republic of China, to supply tire building equipment for use in producing radial “off the road” (OTR) tires, which are used on very large earth moving and mining equipment.
On May 30 and 31, 2007, Roberts and Howley traveled to a Goodyear tire manufacturing facility located in Topeka, Kan., to service Wyko equipment located in the Goodyear plant with the intention of taking photographs of Goodyear’s swab down device to assist them with completing their design even though they knew Goodyear protected the swab down device as a trade secret. On May 31, 2007, the defendants used a cell phone camera to surreptitiously take seven unauthorized photographs of a Goodyear swab down device, without the knowledge or permission of Goodyear.
The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on the 10 felony counts by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Phillips on April 14, 2011. The defendants face a maximum of 10 years in prison for each trade secret count, 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count and $2.5 million in fines.
The case was prosecuted by Trial Attorney Thomas S. Dougherty of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney D. Gregory Weddle of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The case was investigated by the FBI’s Knoxville Division.
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