Indian sentenced to year in prison for stealing trade secrets

Shalin Jhaveri, 30 is expected to be deported to India soon. US District Judge Norman Mordue sentenced Jhaveri to his time served in a New York jail.

Mordue also imposed a USD 5,000 fine and ordered Jhaveri to forfeit the computer equipment he used to steal the formulas. Federal immigration agents took Jhaveri into custody and would transport him to a detention centre where he will face deportation proceedings in 10 days.

Jhaveri sobbed in court as he apologised for betraying the trust of the company and his family, the Syracuse Post-Standard reported that "I have failed in my most significant purpose of being on this earth, and I am ashamed," Jhaveri said.

Jhaveri had pleaded guilty last year to a one-count charge of theft of trade secrets. He was arrested in February 2010. A Syracuse, New York resident, Jhaveri worked as a technical operations associate in Bristol-Myers' management training programme. He had worked at the company since November 2007 at its Syracuse facility, where it develops and manufactures biotechnology medicines for clinical and commercial use.

While he was employed, Jhaveri stole the company's trade secrets and devised a plan to put them to his own use. At the time of his arrest, he was meeting with an investor who was willing to finance Jhaveri's business venture planned in India. Jhaveri had taken more than 1,300 documents from the company starting in late 2009.

He downloaded the information to his laptop and portable hard drives over the course of several days and shared these trade secrets with his potential investor. The trade secrets included formulas for producing a drug under development at Bristol to treat a rare and deadly form of skin cancer. In December 2009, Bristol-Myers' corporate security had notified its in-house computer security experts that Jhaveri was taking confidential material.

Jhaveri, who came to the US eight years ago on a student visa, has a doctorate in chemistry from Cornell University.