By Dawn Kawamoto, 22 November 2005 08:35
NEWS
A former Microsoft employee was sentenced to four years in prison on Friday stemming from charges of illegal sales of the company's software to grey-market vendors.
Finn W Contini, a former Microsoft group assistant, was also sentenced in US District Court in Seattle to three years of probation and required to forfeit approximately $1m in assets as a result of the software sales, according to Katheryn Frierson, an assistant US attorney on the case.
Contini used Microsoft's online ordering system to secure free Microsoft software. The software giant allows employees to order Microsoft software for free providing it is used for business purposes and the order is approved by the employee's supervisor.
But Contini, and three co-workers who have since been sentenced, found a glitch in the ordering process that allowed them to secure the software without notifying their supervisors, according to a complaint filed by the US Attorneys Office.
Over a two-and-half-year period, Contini ordered 5,400 software products that had an estimated retail value of $17m.
As a group, the four former Microsoft employees sold a total of 8,729 products with an estimated retail value of $32.4m, according to the court filing.
Dawn Kawamoto writes for CNET News.com
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1. Chicago Al
Crime pays: steal $32m; payback just $1m - way to go, judge, that's the way to ward off future thieves!