Department of Justice

TWO INDICTED FOR CONSPIRING TO STEAL TRADE SECRETS FROM GOODYEAR TIRE AND RUBBER COMPANY

A Knoxville, Tennessee federal grand jury has returned an indictment against Clark Alan Roberts, 46, and Sean Edward Howley, 38, both engineers with Wyko Tire Technology Incorporated (Wyko), located in Greenback, Tennessee, for conspiring to steal trade secrets from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear) and with a wire fraud scheme to defraud Goodyear of confidential and proprietary information, United States Attorney James R. “Russ” Dedrick and Acting Assistant Attorney General Rita M. Glavin of the Criminal Division announced today. Roberts and Howley were arrested by federal authorities and will be arraigned today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Shirley.

According to the indictment, returned on March 3, 2009, Wyko secured a contract in early 2007 with the Haohau South China Guilin Rubber Company Limited (HHSC), a Chinese tire manufacturing company located in Guilin, Peoples Republic of China, to supply tire manufacturing equipment for use in producing large “off the road” (OTR) tires.

The indictment alleges that in late May 2007, Roberts and Howley traveled to a Goodyear tire manufacturing facility located in Topeka, Kansas. After allegedly making material misrepresentations to Goodyear employees concerning the purpose of their visit, the defendants used a cell phone to surreptitiously photograph proprietary OTR tire manufacturing equipment. According to the indictment, the defendants later emailed the unauthorized photographs, which contained valuable trade secret information, to employees at a Wyko subsidiary located in Dudley, England, who then used the photographs to complete a similar piece of tire manufacturing machinery for the HHSC contract.

The indictment charges one count of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, seven counts of theft of trade secrets, three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. If convicted of all charges, the defendants each face a maximum of 150 years in prison and $2.75 million in fines.

An indictment is merely a formal charge by the grand jury. Each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney D. Gregory Weddle, Eastern District of Tennessee and Trial Attorney Thomas S. Dougherty of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. The case is being investigated by the FBI’s Knoxville field office.

For additional information, contact United States Attorney Russ Dedrick, Assistant U.S. Attorney D. Gregory Weddle, or Public Information Officer Sharry Dedman-Beard at 865-545-4167.