Ex-Apple Engineer Sentenced To Four Months For Trade Secrets Theft

Zhang Xiaolang pleaded guilty in August 2022 to a single count of trade-secret theft.

An illuminated Apple Inc. logo on its store in Sydney, Australia. (Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg)

A former Apple Inc. engineer was sentenced to 120 days in prison for stealing proprietary information from the company while preparing to go work for a Chinese startup that makes electric cars with autonomous driving features.

Zhang Xiaolang pleaded guilty in August 2022 to a single count of trade-secret theft. US prosecutors had accused Zhang of downloading a 25-page Apple document to his wife’s computer that included schematic drawings of a circuit board design for a portion of an autonomous vehicle. 

In a final judgment issued Tuesday, US District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California, proposed that Zhang serve his sentence in a minimum-security facility and recommended that he be given a chance to teach math to other inmates.

Read More: China-Bound Ex-Apple Engineer Admits to Trade Secrets Theft

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