A former vice president of Metaldyne Corp, and two former senior employees have pleaded guilty to federal charges resulting from the theft of trade secrets from Metaldyne and GKN Sinter Metals Inc., to allegedly sell to Chinese competitors.
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The Detroit Free Press said that Anne Lockwood, 55, former vice president of Metaldyne, and Fuping Liu, 44 of Flushing, N.Y., a former Metaldyne metallurgist, pleaded guilty in a US District Court to conspiring to commit interstate transportation of stolen property.
Lockwood’s husband, Michael Haehnel, 53, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of accessing electronic records illegally.
Anne Lockwood is facing up to 33 months in prison and a $60,000 fine; Liu, 18 months and a $30,000 fine; and Haehnel, up to 1 year in custody and a $5,000 fine, the report said.
They were indicted in 2006 on charges of pilfering the process for manufacturing heavy auto parts from powdered metal. Plymouth-based Metaldyne and Auburn Hills-based GKN Sinter Metals, Inc., are the only companies in the world to make powdered metal successfully into heavy-duty auto parts, such as connecting rods, strong enough to place in large engines, the report said.
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By GlobalDataThe report added that although Lockwood said in court that some of the secrets made it into the hands of competitors, authorities said the key process did not.
