Motorola Engineer Guilty of Stealing Trade Secrets

(NewsCore) - A former Motorola software engineer was found guilty of stealing trade secrets from the company, the US Justice Department said Wednesday.

But the defendant, Hanjuan Jin -- a US citizen originally from China -- was acquitted on three counts of economic espionage for the benefit of the People's Republic of China.

Jin, 41, faces up to 10 years in prison on each count of stealing trade secrets.

"The verdict establishes that Jin stole valuable trade secrets from an American company, and we will do everything we can to guard our economic and national security from the theft of American trade secrets," US Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said in a statement. "This case is a successful example of how we can work with victim corporations to prosecute these cases while protecting the trade secrets involved."

In February 2007, Jin was stopped by customs agents at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport as she attempted to flee to China on a one-way ticket with more than 1,000 electronic and paper Motorola proprietary documents in her possession.

Jin was ordered to home confinement, with electronic monitoring, pending sentencing, which was scheduled for April 18 in federal court.