Former Employee’s Theft of Trade Secrets Leads to Criminal Charges and Ultimate Federal Prison Sentence.

On December 13, 2010, Kevin Crow was sentenced to serve thirty-six (36) months in Federal prison, without parole, which prison term was to be followed by 3 years’ supervised release. Mr. Crow was also fined $10,000.00. What was Mr. Crow’s alleged crime? He had been charged with one-count of Theft of Trade Secrets in violation of Title 18 United States Code, Section 1832. Specifically, Mr. Crow allegedly had stolen trade secrets from a former employer and used this information to the benefit of his new employer.

The facts as alleged by the prosecution were as follows. Mr. Crow had been an engineer with Turbine Engines Components Technologies Corporation (TECT) for just under thirty years, (August 1979 until June of 2007) when he was laid off by the company. Of particular interest, Mr. Crow’s duties at TECT were alleged to include creating and modifying company policy for the identification and protection of TECT’s trade secrets. As is common practice in many “trade-secret heavy” firms, Mr. Crow executed a statement upon his termination that he had returned all documents containing any trade secrets TECT. The prosecution, however, alleged that despite this statement, he had in fact taken approximately 100 computer discs containing information identified as trade secret by the Company.

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