Clark Roberts (age 47) and Sean Howley (age 39) were both engineers with Wyko Tire Technology, Inc., located in Greenback, Tennessee. And they both had a problem. Although their employer was “in the business of making tire building equipment for Goodyear and other tire manufacturers,” the company’s Chinese customer, the Haohua South China Guilin Rubber Company Limited (HHSC), had paid them $1.2 million to design a piece of tire building equipment they had never designed before. Known as a “swab down device,” the equipment was used during the manufacture of large off-the-road radial (OTR) tires, such as those used in earth moving and mining equipment.

It was important to finish the design of the swab down device, but they were “having difficulty” with the project. Apparently, the project was in jeopardy and they needed an “out-of-the-box” solution to their problems.

What to do? What to do?

These two intrepid engineers came up with a daring plan. In the words of this Department of Justice news release--

On May 30 and 31, 2007, Roberts and Howley, traveled to a Goodyear tire manufacturing facility located in Topeka, Kan., to service Wyko equipment located in the Goodyear plant with the intention of taking photographs of Goodyear’s swab down device to assist them with completing their design even though they knew Goodyear protected the swab down device as a trade secret. On May 31, 2007, the defendants used a cell phone camera to surreptitiously take seven unauthorized photographs of a Goodyear swab down device, without the knowledge or permission of Goodyear. The defendants then emailed the unauthorized photographs to employees at a Wyko subsidiary located in Dudley, England, who used the trade secret information contained in the photographs to complete a similar piece of tire building equipment for the HHSC contract.

As you might expect from seeing this story on our website, there was no happy ending for the two engineers. According to the DOJ—

After a one-week trial, the jury found Roberts and Howley guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft, one count of trade secret theft, one count of unlawful photographing of trade secrets, three counts of transmittal of trade secrets, one count of possession of trade secrets, two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

That’s 10—ten—felony convictions each, for those keeping track in their programs.

And what did our engineers win for their efforts at saving their company from a breach of contract from its nonperformance? According to the DOJ, “The defendants face a maximum of 10 years in prison for each trade secret count, 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count and $2.5 million in fines.”

For those doing the math, that is a very, very long time in prison. One assumes the malefactors will receive less than the maximum sentence. One might wonder why they didn’t plea bargain for a lesser sentence before trial. During the trial, one might wonder what defense they thought was going to save them from the charges. In any case, our two Tennessee engineers—now former Wyko employees—soon will have plenty of time to ponder those and other questions.