United States v. Levandowski

A star self-driving engineer downloaded 14,000 Google files, jumped to Uber, and pleaded guilty to one count of trade secret theft, drawing 18 months before a presidential pardon.

Few names capture the collision of Silicon Valley ambition and trade-secret law like Anthony Levandowski. A pioneering self-driving engineer who helped build Google’s autonomous-vehicle program, he left to launch a startup that Uber promptly acquired — and in United States v. Levandowski, No. 3:19-cr-00377-WHA (N.D. Cal. 2020), that move turned into a federal criminal conviction. He pleaded guilty to one count of trade secret theft, and U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who had also presided over the parallel civil fight between Waymo and Uber, called it “the biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.” The case is a rare example of trade-secret misappropriation prosecuted as a federal crime against an individual at the top of his field.

At a glance

Case: United States v. Anthony Scott Levandowski, No. 3:19-cr-00377-WHA (N.D. Cal.).
Court: United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Judge William H. Alsup.
Posture: Guilty plea (Aug. 2020) to one count of trade secret theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1832; sentencing followed.
Holding: Levandowski admitted downloading a confidential Google file with intent to benefit himself and Uber; he was sentenced to 18 months, a $95,000 fine, and roughly $756,499 in restitution.
Significance: A high-profile criminal enforcement of the trade-secret laws against a marquee engineer, decided against the backdrop of one of the largest civil trade-secret disputes in tech history.

From Project Chauffeur to a competitor’s payroll

Levandowski worked on Google’s self-driving effort, then known internally as Project Chauffeur and later spun out as Waymo. As he prepared to leave in early 2016, he downloaded a large volume of files — by the government’s account roughly 14,000 documents — from a corporate repository onto a personal device. The materials related to the lidar sensors, circuit-board designs, and other technology at the heart of autonomous driving. He then founded a startup, Ottomotto, which Uber acquired within months, installing him atop Uber’s self-driving program.

Waymo sued Uber civilly for trade-secret misappropriation and patent infringement. That case, before Judge Alsup, settled in 2018 with Uber handing Waymo a substantial equity stake — a settlement widely reported in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But the civil settlement did not end Levandowski’s exposure. Judge Alsup referred the matter to federal prosecutors, and in August 2019 a grand jury indicted him on multiple counts of trade secret theft and attempted theft.

A 33-count indictment narrowed to one plea

The original indictment charged Levandowski with dozens of counts arising from the files he took. In August 2020 he resolved the case by pleading guilty to a single count under § 1832, the Economic Espionage Act’s commercial-theft provision. In the factual basis, he admitted downloading a specific confidential Google tracking file with the intent to use it to benefit himself and Uber. In exchange, the government agreed to dismiss the remaining counts.

That structure — a sweeping indictment reduced to one admitted count — is common in trade-secret prosecutions, where the government often charges each downloaded category separately to maximize leverage. Section 1832 requires proof that the defendant knowingly stole or copied a trade secret related to a product in interstate commerce, intending to convert it to the economic benefit of someone other than the owner and knowing the offense would injure the owner. Levandowski’s admission supplied each element for the single count.

Sentencing, restitution, and a last-day pardon

At sentencing, Judge Alsup imposed 18 months in prison, a $95,000 fine, and restitution of approximately $756,499.22 to Google. The judge’s remark that this was the largest trade-secret crime he had encountered underscored both the scale of the files taken and the stakes of the autonomous-vehicle race. Alsup allowed Levandowski to defer reporting because of the pandemic.

He never served the term. On January 20, 2021 — his final full day in office — President Donald Trump granted Levandowski a full and unconditional pardon. The pardon erased the prison sentence but did not undo the underlying facts: a guilty plea, a restitution order, and a civil settlement that had already reshaped the competitive landscape. The case stands as a cautionary tale about the personal criminal exposure that can follow a high-stakes lateral move, even when a civil settlement resolves the corporate dispute.

Open questions

How far does § 1832 reach for departing employees? Levandowski resolved by plea, so it produced no contested ruling on where lawful preparation to compete ends and criminal theft begins.
What is the role of parallel civil and criminal tracks? The civil settlement preceded the criminal charges; the interplay between private resolution and public prosecution remains unsettled in practice.
Does a pardon affect restitution or collateral consequences? The pardon ended the sentence, but the practical and reputational effects of a guilty plea and restitution order persisted.

Implications

Trade-secret theft can be a personal crime. Even a celebrated engineer faces prison exposure; civil settlement by an employer does not immunize the individual who took the files.
Bulk downloads create powerful evidence. Copying thousands of files to a personal device leaves a forensic trail that supports both indictment and the intent element of § 1832.
Charging strategy favors many counts, one plea. Prosecutors commonly stack counts and then accept a single-count plea, a pattern departing employees and their counsel should anticipate.
Judges can trigger criminal referrals. A civil court’s referral helped launch the prosecution, showing how civil and criminal tracks can feed one another.
A pardon is not vindication. The plea, restitution order, and settlement remained on the record despite the clemency that prevented incarceration.

Frequently asked questions

What did Anthony Levandowski plead guilty to? He pleaded guilty to a single count of trade secret theft under 18 U.S.C. Section 1832, admitting he downloaded a confidential Google file intending to use it to benefit himself and Uber. Prosecutors dismissed the remaining counts as part of the plea.

What sentence did he receive? Judge William Alsup sentenced Levandowski to 18 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $95,000 fine and about $756,499 in restitution. Alsup called it the largest trade secret crime he had ever seen.

Did he actually serve the sentence? No. On January 20, 2021, President Donald Trump granted Levandowski a full pardon before he reported to prison, ending the criminal case without imprisonment.