LOS ANGELES (CHATNEWSTV) — A San Bernardino County man was sentenced Thursday to 12 months in federal prison for possessing trade secrets stolen from his former U.S. employers and using them to build a competing business connected to a China-based company.
Liming Li, 66, of Rancho Cucamonga, was also fined approximately $14,000 and ordered to pay $17,000 in restitution, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He must report to prison by August 12.
Li pleaded guilty in February to one count of possessing trade secrets. Prosecutors said he downloaded proprietary technology from a Southern California precision-measuring equipment company where he worked for over two decades.
“Li used his insider access to steal and retain sensitive software he had no right to keep, and he then used that intellectual property to benefit a foreign entity,” federal prosecutors said in a statement. “This conduct damages American innovation and national security.”
From 1996 to 2018, Li held engineering and leadership roles at a company identified in court records as “U.S. Company #1,” which specialized in micrometers, calipers, and coordinate measuring machines. He helped develop proprietary software and signed confidentiality agreements in 2013 requiring him to return all such material upon termination.
Instead, Li admitted he stored proprietary data on personal devices without permission and failed to return it after being fired in 2018.
Prosecutors said Li then launched his own consulting business and, in 2020, joined Suzhou Universal Group Technology Co. Ltd., a Chinese manufacturer. He continued to access the stolen data for his own economic benefit and to promote business activities that, according to the plea deal, risked harming his former employer.
Li was arrested in May 2023. The case was investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement.
The prosecution was brought under the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a Justice Department initiative to combat efforts by foreign adversaries to obtain sensitive American technology.
“This case highlights the serious consequences of exploiting U.S. intellectual property for foreign gain,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron B. Frumkin, part of the team that prosecuted the case alongside officials from the National Security Division and the Major Frauds Section.
