BOSTON—A Chelmsford man was sentenced
today in federal court to three years in prison for stealing computer chip
manufacturing and design documents.
Biswamohan Pani, 36, was sentenced by
U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor, IV to three years in prison, to be
followed by two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a fine of
$17,500. In April 2012, Pani pleaded guilty to five counts of wire fraud.
In 2008, Pani was working in Hudson,
Massachusetts, for Intel Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of computer
chips. From February through April, 2008, Pani was looking for a job at other
computer chip manufacturers and ultimately obtained a job at Advanced Micro
Devices Inc. (AMD), an Intel competitor. Pani kept his job search secret from
Intel. When he announced his departure on May 29, 2008, he told the company
that he might work for a hedge fund. Pani told Intel that he wanted to take the
next one-and-a-half weeks as vacation until his last day at work on June 11,
2008.
Unbeknownst to Intel, Pani had started
downloading from Intel numerous secret documents about Intel’s manufacturing
and design of computer chips. The intensive downloads began on May 28, just
before he announced his departure, and continued on May 29. Also unbeknownst to
Intel, Pani started working at AMD on June 2, while he was still on Intel’s
payroll and still had access to Intel’s computer systems. On June 8 and June
10, Pani remotely accessed Intel’s computer system numerous times and
downloaded 13 of Intel’s most valuable documents, along with other confidential
and proprietary information, and a document explaining how encrypted documents
could be reviewed when not connected to Intel’s computer system. Pani also
backed up the downloaded files to an external hard drive for access after he
left Intel.
On June 11, 2008, Pani reported to Intel
for his exit interview and falsely stated that he had not retained any of
Intel’s property, when, in fact, he had kept the electronic equivalent of boxes
full of downloaded documents and some printed Intel documents at his apartment.
They were found a month later when the FBI searched his home. Intel has valued
those documents as worth $200-$400 million, at minimum.
The FBI was able to recover these
documents quickly, before Pani could use them to Intel’s disadvantage, largely
because Intel reported the theft quickly and assisted the investigation. AMD
also cooperated with the investigation, and there was no evidence that AMD or
its employees had asked Pani to take these documents or even knew that he had
them. Pani nevertheless took Intel’s documents to advance his career at AMD or
elsewhere by drawing on the documents when the opportunity arose, with his
employer’s knowledge or not.
United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz
and Richard DesLauriers, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation-Boston Field Division made the announcement today. The case was
prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Adam J. Bookbinder and Scott L. Garland
of Ortiz’s Cybercrimes Unit.
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