A former engineer in Google's self-driving division who became the focus of a criminal investigation that rocked Silicon Valley has pleaded guilty to a count of trade secrets theft, NBC News reports.
Anthony Levandowski admitted he downloaded thousands of proprietary files from an internal Google server in 2015 and transferred them to his personal laptop, according to filings submitted Thursday in federal court in San Francisco.
Among the numerous files Levandowski downloaded was one called "Chauffeur TL weekly updates – Q4 2015," an internal document that included numerous details about Google's self-driving program, the Justice Department said in the court documents.
"I downloaded this file with the intent to use it for the benefit of someone other than Google," Levandowski wrote in the filing. "The Chauffeur Weekly Update contained a variety of details regarding the status of Google's self-driving car program."
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