Anthony Levandowski, a former executive at Uber who oversaw its self-driving vehicle program, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to trade secret theft.
Former UBer executive Anthony Levandowski pleaded guilty to stealing an internal tracking document from Google related to its self-driving car program and was sentenced to spend 18 months in prison.
Imprisonment and fines
In a Department of Justice press release, US District Judge William Alsup said: "This is the biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen. This was not small. This was massive in scale."
As part of the sentencing on one count of trade secret theft, Levandowski received a fine of $95,000 and was ordered to pay $756,499.22 in restitution to Google's self-driving car unit, Waymo.
As part of a plea deal, federal prosecutors dismissed the remaining 32 counts against Levandowski.
However, due to the risks of the coronavirus pandemic, it remains unclear when the former Uber executive will serve his time.
A statement from Levandowski's counsel, Ismail Ramsey & Miles Ehrlich of Ramsey & Ehrlich LLP, read: "We're thankful to Judge Alsup for allowing Anthony to stay out of custody for now, given the extraordinary circumstances brought on by the pandemic."
It added: "Anthony deeply regrets his past decisions and, while we are saddened that he will to have to spend time in prison, Anthony remains committed to his life's mission of building innovative technologies to improve people's lives."
Google vs Uber lawsuit
In 2017. Levandowski became the centerpiece of a high-profile lawsuit filed by Google against Uber. According to Google, Levandowski, one of the founding members of its self-driving car project, downloaded thousands of confidential files to a personal hard drive before resigning from the company.
After leaving Google in January 2016, Levandowski established Otto, an autonomous trucking startup, which Uber acquired later that year.
According to Uber, it fired Levandowski in May 2017 after he failed to meet a deadline to comply with an internal investigation into the allegations raised by the Google lawsuit. The said lawsuit was settled by Uber and Waymo, Google's self-driving unit, the following year.
Uber's self-driving cars
In March 2018, one of Uber's self-driving cars was involved in a fatal crash in Arizona, resulting to the death of Elaine Herzberg, aged 49. Herzberg was crossing a poorly lit multi-lane road with her bicycle when she was hit by a Volvo XC90 using Uber’s self-driving technology.
Investigators found that the car’s backup driver, Rafaela Vasquez, did not have her eyes on the road moments before and was streaming a television show on her phone.
According to the USÂ National Transportation Safety Board (NSTB), the vehicle failed to correctly identify the bicycle as an imminent collision until just before the crash but by that time, it was too late for it to avoid the accident.
Prior to the crash, Uber was testing its self-driving cars in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.
In early February of this year, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in California has issued a permit to ride-hailing firm Uber to test self-driving cars on public roads.
The state’s issuance of a permit to Uber, along with 65 other transport firms, marks the latest step in the firm’s revival of the program. In California, companies are permitted to test self-driving technology as long as a backup driver is in the car.
