An Inland Empire man could face as many as 10 years in prison after he admitted to using secrets from an American technology company to aid a Chinese company for his own financial gain, prosecutors say.
Liming Li, 66, of Rancho Cucamonga, pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of possession of trade secrets, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Li was arrested in May 2023 after his flight from Taiwan landed at Ontario International Airport.
From 1996 to 2013, Li worked as a senior software engineer, then as a program manager at an American company based in Southern California that “specialized in precision measuring instruments and metrological technology and equipment,” prosecutors say. Identified only as “U.S. Company #1,” it sold products such as micrometers, calipers, coordinate measuring machines and optical measurement systems.
In July 2013, Li signed an agreement with the company which required him to turn over the company’s proprietary information and barred him from sharing it with any other companies. He had worked with that information in the form of source code for one of the company’s software programs.
As part of his guilty plea, Li admitted that he “occasionally” downloaded that information onto his personal devices and failed to turn it over even after he stopped working at U.S. Company #1. From 2013 to 2018, Li worked at a subsidiary of U.S. Company #1.
He was terminated from that company in 2018 and failed to turn over all of the proprietary information, despite his signed agreement.
He then operated a consulting company named JSL Innovations Inc. starting in February 2018. In addition to that job, he started working for Suzhou Universal Group Technology Co. Ltd. in March 2020.
While working for that China-based chain-and-bearing manufacturer, Li used the information stolen from U.S. Company #1 for his own financial benefit, he admitted in the plea agreement. He also admitted that the use of that information would “injure” U.S. Company #1’s interests.
Li is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8. He could face a maximum of 10 years in prison.
