The theft spurred a high-profile and bitter lawsuit two years ago between Google's self-driving car arm, which was renamed Waymo, and Uber. the fees were focused on Levandowski's work with Otto, a self-driving shipping company that the engineer founded which Uber acquired in 2016. Google alleged that Levandowski downloaded 14,000 "highly confidential" files describing self-driving technology research and brought them to Otto.
"This is that the biggest secret crime I even have ever seen," US District Judge William Alsup, who handed down the sentencing, said Tuesday. "This wasn't small. This was massive in scale."
Levandowski are going to be ready to begin his jail time after the COVID-19 pandemic has passed, the Department of Justice said. Alsup also ordered him to pay quite $756,000 in restitution to Waymo, also as a $95,000 fine.
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The sentencing is that the culmination of the long-running legal drama between Waymo and Uber. The case, which visited trial in San Francisco two years ago, provided a rare glimpse into the high-stakes environment of massive tech companies, which usually attempt to shield their inner workings from public view. But only days into the trial, which was expected to last a minimum of three weeks, the 2 companies abruptly settled, giving Waymo 0.34 percent of Uber's equity.
Levandowski's attorney, also as Uber, didn't immediately answer requests for comment.
Waymo called the prison sentence a "win" for technology secret laws. "Anthony Levandowski's theft of autonomous technology trade secrets has been enormously disruptive and harmful to Waymo, constituted a betrayal, and therefore the effects would likely are even more severe had it gone undetected," a spokeswoman said.
In March, Levandowski was ordered to pay a $179 million fine to Google for the theft. Hours after the award was granted to Google, the engineer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Last year, Levandowski was charged by the Department of Justice with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google. The indictment alleged that Levandowski stole secrets associated with lidar (for "light detection and ranging") technology.
The tech allows self-driving cars to "see" their surroundings and detect traffic, pedestrians, bicyclists and other obstacles. The files downloaded by Levandowski allegedly included circuit card schematics, instructions for installing and testing lidar and an indoor tracking document, the Department of Justice said.
Even after the settlement between Waymo and Uber last year, Levandowski continued to develop self-driving technology with a replacement startup called Pronto.ai. After the indictment, Pronto said Levandowski would not function CEO of the startup.
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