FORMER MICROSOFT EMPLOYEE SENTENCED TO TWO YEARS IN PRISON FOR SCHEME TO PROFIT FROM STOLEN SOFTWARE
RICHARD GREGG, 45, of Bellevue, Washington was sentenced to 24 months in prison today in U.S. District Court in Seattle for Mail Fraud in connection with a more than $13 million dollar software theft scheme at Microsoft Corporation. Judge John C. Coughenour also ordered GREGG to pay more than $5 million dollars in restitution to the company for software he diverted for his own illegal sales.
According to the plea agreement, GREGG admits that while employed at Microsoft as a Project Coordinator from May 2002, to December 2002, he took advantage of an internal ordering program set up to assist Microsoft employees with their work on behalf of the company. GREGG ordered and then resold more than 4,400 pieces of software with a value of more than $13 million dollars. GREGG admits he used the profits from selling the stolen software to pay off the mortgage on his Bellevue Condominium, purchase a 1999 Land Rover Discovery, and make a $48,000 payment on a 2002 M3 BMW. With GREGG's assistance, investigators were able to recover approximately $7 million dollars in software that GREGG had misappropriated.
At sentencing, GREGG told the Judge he was extremely remorseful, saying the last two and a half years of his life had been "shamefully embarrassing." GREGG noted that he now realized that his bitterness at Microsoft "did not justify his malicious retaliatory action against Microsoft."
Judge Coughenour acknowledged GREGG's efforts to rectify the harm he had done in imposing the sentence in this case. Judge Coughenour said, "The way you dealt with this suggests you will be just fine. You're going to be just fine."
The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Annette L. Hayes.
For additional information please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney's Office, Western District of Washington at (206) 553-4110.