Former Software Company Employee Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison for Sending Damaging Computer Code to Company Servers

A Union, New Jersey, man was sentenced today to 30 months in prison following his guilty plea to one count of causing the transmission of computer code and, as a result, damaging computers and causing at least $5,000 in losses.

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney John Stuart Bruce of the Eastern District of North Carolina and Special Agent in Charge John A. Strong of the FBI in North Carolina. 

Nikhil Nilesh Shah, 33, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan of the Eastern District of North Carolina, who also ordered Shah to pay $324,462 in restitution. 

According to the plea agreement, from 2007 to 2012, Shah was an information technology manager at Smart Online Inc., a company located in Durham, North Carolina, that developed platforms for the creation of mobile applications.  Shah admitted that in March 2012, he left Smart Online to work for another technology company, and on June 28, 2012, he sent malicious computer code to Smart Online’s computer servers in Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina, deleting much of Smart Online’s intellectual property. 

The FBI’s Raleigh Office investigated the case.  Senior Trial Attorney Richard D. Green of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Hulbig of the Eastern District of North Carolina prosecuted the case.