OAKLAND, Calif. — A U.S. judge on Tuesday sentenced former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski to 18 months in prison for stealing a trade secret from Google related to self-driving cars months before becoming the head of Uber Technologies Inc's rival unit.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco said Levandowski, who was convicted on Tuesday following a March plea deal agreement, could enter custody once the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided.
Alsup said a sentence short of imprisonment would have given "a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets," comparing what Levandowski took to a "competitor's game plan."
Levandowski's conviction is one of the highest-profile for Silicon Valley intellectual property theft.
Levandowski agreed to a plea deal two weeks after filing for bankruptcy. He owes $179 million to Alphabet Inc's Google to settle a dispute arising from his actions before leaving the company in January 2016.
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