Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski guilty of stealing secrets

SAN FRANCISCO – A former Google star engineer charged with stealing trade secrets from its self-driving car program has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors, according to court documents filed Thursday. Anthony Levandowski, 39, was a founding member of an autonomous vehicle project in 2009 called "Chauffeur," one of Google's more ambitious undertakings. Several years later Levandowski began thinking of leaving Google for another self-driving endeavor that was eventually named "Otto," the plea deal said. He began negotiating with ride-sharing giant Uber to invest in or buy Otto while he was still working at Google, and admits having downloaded a whole series of documents a few months before his resignation in January 2016. "Prior to my departure, I downloaded thousands of files related to Project Chauffeur," Levandowski said in court documents.