Engineer at the Heart of 'Waymo v. Uber' Pleads Guilty to Trade Secret Theft
Anthony Levandowski, a pivotal though silent player in the civil dispute between Google's Waymo subsidiary and Uber, admitted downloading at least 20 files from his Google Drive, including an internal tracking document with details of Google's self-driving car program.
March 19, 2020 at 10:27 PM
3 minute read
Anthony Levandowski leaves court in San Jose after being indicted for trade secret theft. (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)
Correction: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect caption for the case 'Waymo v. Uber' in the headline.
Anthony Levandowski, the former head of Google's autonomous vehicle unit who was at the center of the company's high-profile dispute with Uber Technologies, has agreed to plead guilty to federal trade secret theft charges.
Federal prosecutors and lawyers for Levandowski, one of the founding members of Google's "Project Chauffeur" autonomous vehicle project, filed court papers Thursday indicating that Levandowski admitted to downloading at least 20 files from his Google Drive, including an internal tracking document titled "Chauffeur TL weekly updates – Q4 2015" that included details of Google's self-driving car program. As part of the plea agreement to one count of trade secret theft, Levandowski acknowledged that the information was not public and that he intended to use it for his own personal benefit.
"Mr. Levandowski accepts responsibility and is looking forward to resolving this matter," said Levandowski's lawyer, Miles Ehrlich of Ramsey & Ehrlich, in a statement. "Mr. Levandowski is a young man with enormous talents and much to contribute to the fast-moving world of AI and AV and we hope that this plea will allow him to move on with his life and focus his energies where they matter most," he said.
Levandowski was a pivotal—though silent—player in the civil dispute between Google's Waymo subsidiary and Uber. Waymo accused Levandowski of downloading 14,000 company files before leaving Google in 2016 to start a new company, Otto, which he quickly sold to Uber for $680 million. Levandowski formally invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the civil dispute and refused to provide testimony. That decision resulted in Levandowski being first removed from all development of laser-based vision technology at Uber in April 2017, and then terminated by the company the next month. U.S. District Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California, who oversaw the civil dispute, referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office for a potential criminal probe.
Uber declined to comment on the case.
Thursday's court papers asked Alsup, who has been overseeing the criminal case, as well, to set a sentencing date.
Levandowski, who was ordered to pay Google $179 million in arbitration, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.
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