Former DuPont Employee Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison for Trade Secret Theft

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that former DuPont employee Michael Mitchell was sentenced a federal judge in Richmond, Virginia to 18 months imprisonment, a restitution of $14,500 to DuPont and $30,000 in fine for theft of trade secrets and obstruction of justice.

Mitchell, who left DuPont in early 2006 was working on behalf of a Korea-based company Kolon Industries when we was suspected by DuPont of theft of proprietary information. Following which DuPont filed a civil lawsuit against Kolon in February 2009.

When ousted from DuPont, Mitchell was handling the sales and marketing of Kevlar that is five times stronger than steel. Mitchell, however, left DuPont with several confidential and sensitive documents and later traded them to Kolon, a South Korean company that markets a similar product belonging to the class of Kevlar. The company noted that FBI later recovered several of such files from his personal computer and other locations when it raided his residence in February 2006. At that time, he was working for Victrex, a polyether producer.