David A. Goldenberg was convicted of corporate espionage by Judge Harry G. Carroll at the Bergen County Courthouse for intercepting proprietary e-mails from his company’s chief competitor while working as a vice president for Texas-based AMX Corporation, a subsidiary of Duchossis Industries.

On 26 June, Goldenberg was sentenced to three years probation, including psychological counseling, and will have to pay fines following his conviction and sentencing for felony wiretapping.

Sapphire Marketing notified the authorities in February of 2008, Goldenberg was arrested following a six week investigation by the Paramus Police Department (a member of the Computer Crimes Task Force). He was charged with unlawful access of a computer system/network, unlawful access of computer data/theft of data and conducting an illegal wiretap. He was released on $50,000 bail.

On 11 May, 2009, Goldenberg entered a plea of guilty to felony wiretapping.

The investigation revealed that, while an employee of AMX Corporation, Goldenberg had infiltrated Sapphire’s e-mail accounts. He was intercepting emails related to potential contracts, which afforded him advanced knowledge of Sapphire’s customers and bid prices affording him an opportunity to underbid them. He then established a free email account and created an automatic forward of the victim’s email to that address.

“One of our employees was going to be away and needed to establish an ‘out of office reply’ for her email and that is when she noticed her email was being forwarded to an unfamiliar external address,” said owner of Sapphire Marketing, a sales representative for Crestron Electronics, Marla Suttenberg. “We had been suspicious of a leak for some time but this seemed to confirm our suspicions and we quickly brought this information to the authorities’ attention.”

The estimated losses for Sapphire and Crestron can not be quantified as sensitive material has been compromised.

“Mr. Goldenberg is paying the price, but it is hard to believe that his employer and our chief competitor, AMX Corporation, has not benefitted from this illegally acquired information,” said executive vice president of Crestron Electronics Randy Klein. “The full damage caused by the compromising of this information is immeasurable and has seriously impacted our past, present and future business.”

Prior to being hired by AMX, he had been a customer of both Sapphire Marketing and Crestron Electronics. Goldenberg approached Crestron for employment in May of 2007 and was not hired. He was hired by AMX in June 2007 as general manager of their east coast office and was promoted to vice president before his arrest.

“It is ironic that a self-professed courtroom technology expert would be pleading guilty for using technology to spy on a competitor,” said Suttenberg.