On Thursday, former Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google software engineer Linwei Ding received a major legal reprieve after a federal judge overturned his economic espionage convictions.
Judge Rejects Economic Espionage Convictions
U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that Ding knew or intended his actions would benefit the Chinese government, a requirement for economic espionage charges, Reuters reported.
However, Chhabria said the evidence supported Ding’s convictions on seven counts of stealing trade secrets.
Ding, also known as Leon Ding, was convicted in January following an 11-day trial.
