Two men were found guilty of stealing an American company’s secret recipe for making a chemical used to whiten products from cars to the middle of Oreo cookies and selling it to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
The four-man, eight-woman federal jury found Robert Maegerle, 78, and Walter Liew, 56, guilty of economic espionage and each could face 15 years or more in prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
Noting Liew’s connections to China, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White ordered him taken into custody immediately.
“He has received millions of dollars from the People’s Republic of China that remains unaccounted for,” White said. “That’s a lot of money that could help someone flee.”….READ MORE
