A former Boeing Co. employee and Orange resident was convicted Wednesday of providing China with trade secrets since the 1970s.
Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 73, was found guilty of conspiracy, acting as a foreign agent, making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and six counts of economic espionage, according to Bloomberg.
He was convicted in a non-jury trial in federal court in Santa Ana.
Chung, a naturalized U.S. citizen, worked for the defense and space unit of Rockwell International Corp. from 1973 until Boeing bought it in 1996. He worked for Boeing in Downey and later in Huntington Beach.
He retired from Boeing in 2002 and worked as a consultant until 2006.
“The trust Boeing placed in Mr. Chung to safeguard its proprietary and trade secret information obviously meant very little to Mr. Chung,” judge Cormac Carney said, according to Bloomberg. “He cast it aside to serve the PRC, which he proudly proclaimed as his motherland.”
Chung is expected to appeal the case. His lawyer told Bloomberg that the information Chung provided the Chinese was publicly available.
Sentencing is scheduled for November. Prosecutors could ask for a minimum of 15 to 20 years.
