Former Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing AI Trade Secrets Gets Major Legal Break as Judge Throws Out Economic Espionage Charges

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On Thursday, former Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google software engineer Linwei Ding received a major legal reprieve after a federal judge overturned his economic espionage convictions.

Judge Rejects Economic Espionage Convictions

U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that Ding knew or intended his actions would benefit the Chinese government, a requirement for economic espionage charges, Reuters reported.

However, Chhabria said the evidence supported Ding’s convictions on seven counts of stealing trade secrets.

Ding, also known as Leon Ding, was convicted in January following an 11-day trial.

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Ding Still Faces Trade Secret Convictions

The ruling overturned seven economic espionage convictions against Ding, each carrying a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

His seven trade-secret theft convictions remain intact, carrying up to 10 years and a $250,000 fine per count. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 1.

Prosecutors accused him of stealing thousands of pages of confidential information from Google related to the technology powering the company’s AI data centers.

His lawyers sought an acquittal about three weeks after the trial, arguing that prosecutors had not proven the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Justice Department and Google did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

Google AI Secrets at Center of Case

Prosecutors said Ding joined Google in May 2019 and began stealing confidential information about three years later while being recruited by an early-stage Chinese technology company.

The allegedly stolen material included details about the hardware infrastructure and software platforms Google uses to train large AI models.

Price Action: On Thursday, Alphabet Class A closed at $340.67, down 1.17%, while Alphabet Class C closed at $338.20, down 1.02%, according to Benzinga Pro.

According to Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings, GOOGL ranks in the 87th percentile for growth, despite underperforming over the short and medium term while posting positive long-term performance.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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