The attorneys of Pietragallo’s White Collar Criminal Defense practice group are experienced in all aspects of white collar criminal defense matters and investigations.
In an indictment unsealed on Tuesday in an Indiana federal court, the government alleged that two former Eli Lilly scientists, Guoqin Cao and Shuya Li, forwarded company trade secrets to a competing Chinese research firm, Jiangsu Hangui Medicine Co., Ltd. The trade secrets – valued at $55 million – included sensitive information regarding nine experimental drug research programs at Eli Lilly. The trade secrets related to treatments for cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease and were allegedly forwarded by the scientists via e-mail to a third person, who the indictment only referred to as Individual #1.
This case is part of a larger effort by the DOJ’s Task Force on Intellectual Property, which was created to combat a growing number of domestic and international intellectual property crimes, including theft of corporate trade secrets. This case also represents the second prosecution in the Southern District of Indiana for economic espionage. In 2010, Kexue Huang, a Chinese national and research scientist with Dow AgroSciences LLC, was charged with stealing and transporting trade secrets to the People’s Republic of China. The next year, Huang was indicted in the District of Minnesota for stealing trade secrets from another company, Cargill Inc.
The trial of five former employees of Bernard Madoff began today in a Manhattan federal courtroom. The employees, all of whom allegedly furthered Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, are Annette Bongiorno, a supervisor in his private investment business; Daniel Bonventre, his director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and two computer programmers, Jerome O’Hara and George Perez. In 17-count superseding indictment found here, the five face a variety of federal charges related the Ponzi scheme, including securities fraud, records falsification, and tax evasion.
The government has alleged that Madoff manufactured fictitious trades and phantom accounts with help from Ms. Bongiorno as well as the other four defendants. Bongiorno has been described as Madoff’s secretary but also worked in Madoff’s investment business for 40 years managing hundreds of investment accounts, which as of 2008, ostensibly had a cumulative balance of $8.5 billion dollars. The government also claims that the defendants created false documents which were ultimately distributed as accountant statements to investors. These statements allegedly employed complicated Wall Street terminology to suggest that Madoff was using sophisticated techniques to generate the significant profits.
In March 2009, Madoff pled guilty to eleven felony charges related to his role in the scheme reportedly involving $65 billion. In June 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years imprisonment and is presently incarcerated at a federal institution in North Carolina. While Madoff claimed during his guilty plea to have acted alone, federal prosecutors disagree and hope to prove otherwise in the ongoing trial of the five defendants. The trial is expected to last up to five months.
The attorneys of Pietragallo’s White Collar Criminal Defense practice are experienced in every aspect of a white collar criminal defense matters and investigations.
