Former Google engineer pleads guilty to stealing confidential document

Enlarge / Anthony Levandowski leaves court in September 2019. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Anthony Levandowski, the man at the center of Google's epic legal battle with Uber over trade secrets, has agreed to plead guilty to stealing a single confidential document from Google. The guilty plea is likely to lead to a prison sentence of between two and two-and-a-half years.

Levandowski, a gifted engineer, was one of the early stars of Google's self-driving car project. In 2015, he decided to leave Google to start his own self-driving car startup. According to the plea deal, on his way out the door, Levandowski downloaded thousands of confidential Google documents and transferred them to his personal laptop. Uber acquired the startup a few months later in a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Google conducted a forensic investigation and discovered what Levandowski had done. Google then sued Uber for theft of trade secrets. The companies settled the lawsuit a year later, with Uber giving Google more than $200 million in Uber stock.

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