Consultant in Corning secrets theft gets 30 months

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — A California consultant has been sentenced to 30 months in prison for conspiring to steal highly valuable flat-panel-glass blueprints from Corning Inc. and turn them over to a rival business in Taiwan.

Yeong Lin pleaded guilty in June 2007 to theft of trade secrets. Sentencing in federal court for the 70-year-old has been postponed numerous times over the last three years.

While working as a consultant for Taiwan-based PicVue Electronics, prosecutors allege Lin put PicVue officials in contact with a Corning employee who offered drawings he had obtained illegally from a Corning glassmaking plant in Harrodsburg, Ky.

Prosecutors say the materials, which were returned to Corning after it sued PicVue, were valued at more than $50 million. Corning, a specialty glassmaker, is based in western New York.