Former Ford engineer admits to theft of secrets

An engineer who worked for the Ford Motor Co (F.N) until sending in his resignation from his new job in China pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two counts of theft of trade secrets, authorities said.

Xiang Dong Yu, 49, of Beijing, will be sentenced in February 2011 to between 63 months and 78 months in prison based on an estimated loss to Ford of between $50 million and $100 million, the U.S. Attorney for the eastern district of Michigan said.

He must also pay a fine of $150,000 and will be deported from the United States after serving his sentence.

Known as Mike Yu while working as a product engineer for Ford from 1997 to 2007, he accepted a job in late 2006 from the Chinese branch of a U.S. company.

On the eve of his departure for his new job in Shenzhen, China, Yu copied some 4,000 Ford documents onto his computer including sensitive designs unrelated to his work for the company, prosecutors said.

On January 2, 2007, Yu e-mailed his resignation to his supervisor at Ford. The next year, Yu went to work for Beijing Automotive Company, another competitor.

In October 2009, Yu flew back to the United States from China and was arrested in Chicago and jailed. His company laptop computer contained Ford design documents that the FBI learned had been accessed while Yu worked for Beijing Automotive.

"We will vigilantly protect the intellectual property of our U.S. automakers, who invest millions of dollars and decades of time in research and development to compete in a global economy," U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said in a statement.