An engineer who worked for C.R. Bard (NYSE:BCR) and Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE:BDX) admitted yesterday to stealing trade secrets from the companies.
Ketankumar "Ketan" Maniar pleaded guilty before Judge Joel Pisano of the U.S. District Court for New Jersey to 2 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets "for his own economic benefit," according to federal prosecutors.
The FBI arrested Maniar last June as he prepared to flee the country to his native India. He worked for Bard from 2004 to 2011 as an engineer in Salt Lake City, before moving to New Jersey to take a position at BD in February 2012. He resigned from his position as a staff engineer at BD’s Franklin Lakes, N.J., headquarters in May 2013, according to a press release.
"Through his work at Bard and BD, Maniar was able to steal secret information related to the companies’ products, including Bard’s development of the first implantable port used for power injection of pharmaceutical drugs throughout the body. Maniar also had access to secret information related to a self-administered disposable pen injector still under development by BD and not yet available for commercial sale," according to the release. "Maniar admitted he stole Bard and BD trade secrets that he kept after his resignation from those companies. Maniar downloaded numerous files containing Bard or BD product information from his work computers onto multiple computer storage devices, including external hard drives and thumb drives. He also used his work email accounts at Bard and BD to forward trade secrets to his personal email accounts."
Maniar faces 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each count and is slated to be sentenced Sept. 23, the prosecutors said.
