Steuben County man guilty of trade secrets theft

A Steuben County man has been found guilty of stealing trade secrets and attempted espionage after a trial in U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

A federal jury convicted Ji Wang, 63, of Painted Post, of two counts of economic espionage, one count of theft of trade secrets, one count of attempted economic espionage, and one count of attempted theft of trade secrets, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Wang stole sensitive defense research from his employer, Corning Inc., and attempted to use it for personal profit, according to prosecutors.

Wang was born in China and immigrated to the United States in 1998 to work for Corning Inc. Between 2002 and 2007, Wang worked on a research and development project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Corning.

The goal of the project was to develop optical fibers for high-powered lasers with military and commercial applications.

DARPA and Corning worked to dramatically increase the power of fiber lasers. DARPA sought to develop technology to create laser weapons capable of shooting down drones and missiles.

In July 2016 Wang stole hundreds of files that contained data from the DARPA project, including trade-secret manufacturing technology that would have enabled him to fabricate specialty optical fibers, including for fiber lasers.

Ten days before Wang stole the trade secret files he had applied for China’s Thousand Talents Plan Award, a Chinese government initiative aimed at people who were born in China and immigrated to the United States to study or work in science and technology fields.

The Thousand Talents Plan Award incentivized people to return to China by promising millions of dollars of investment. Two months after Wang stole the trade secret files, he was selected to receive a Thousand Talents Plan Award.

Wang was negotiating with Chinese government entities to start a specialty fiber business in China from at least 2014 through 2017.  Wang was negotiating to receive tens of millions of dollars in investment from Chinese government entities, who would have been shareholders in his new venture.

Wang’s business plans showed that he was planning to use the stolen trade-secret files to start this business in China. Wang’s business plans also touted the military applications of the technology.

Ultimately, law enforcement disrupted Wang’s efforts before he was able to start the new business and exploit the technology he stole.

Economic espionage carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and theft of trade secrets carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

U.S. District Court Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr. scheduled sentencing for April 15.

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