United States v. O'Rourke
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
417 F. Supp. 3d 996 (2019)

- Written by Rich Walter, JD
Facts
Before quitting his job as a metallurgical engineer for an Illinois specialty-iron producer, Robert O’Rourke (defendant) downloaded 1,900 confidential company documents. O’Rourke intended to use trade secrets contained in those documents to jump-start research and development for O’Rourke’s new employer, the Illinois company’s Chinese competitor. O’Rourke was arrested as he boarded a plane bound for China. The United States government (plaintiff) successfully prosecuted O’Rourke for several crimes, including attempted theft of trade secrets in violation of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 (EEA). O’Rourke challenged his attempted-theft convictions on the grounds that the district court’s instructions improperly permitted the jury to convict O’Rourke for attempting to steal many documents that, contrary to O’Rourke’s mistaken belief, proved to contain no trade secrets.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Wood, J.)
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