Chinese court levies jail time, fines over iPad 2 leaks

By on Jun 15, 2011 at 5:15 PM
Legal June 15, 2011

Two Hon Hai employees and a MacTop Electronics executive have been found guilty of leaking information about Apple’s iPad 2 ahead of its release. The trio was arrested in December last year following an investigation by authorities in Shenzhen, China. Xiao Chengsong, general manager of Shenzhen MacTop Electronics Co., former Hon Hai employee named Hou Pengna, and Lin Kecheng, a Hon Hai research-and-development employee, were all sentenced on Tuesday in a Chinese court. Hou was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 30,000 yuan, Lin was sentenced to 14 months and fined 100,000 yuan, and Xiao was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and fined 150,000 yuan.

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  • Anonymous

    IBGR!

  • Anonymous

    Go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect any orange chicken!

  • Anonymous

    APPLE GOOD!!!! FOXCONN BAD!!!! true story.

  • http://twitter.com/Kevniv Kevin N

    Thats bullshit! Over a year in a chinese prison. Apple should drop the charges. 

    • Anonymous

      You do know this is CHINA right? Their freaking lucky they are still alive. A former Drug and Food regulator was executed for bribes. China doesn’t want to lose face to Apple over these leaks and these two will serve as deterrents. Lol, hopefully Steve helped commute their sentences to this.

  • whydidnt

    Kind seems odd that this is a criminal offense, rather than civil. I can see Foxconn/Apple suing them for damages and winning, them losing jobs etc, but really 12-18 months in jail for what in reality probably cost neither Foxconn on Apple anything in the long run.  Seems ridiculous to me, I know it’s China not the US, but it just seems like another example of a major government being used by corporations for their own benefit. Seriously “leaking” a corporate secret get’s you sent to jail… stupid!

    • whoswho

      Amen.  People here in the states want the the soldier who he released over 200,000 top secret documents to get off with no chardes.  Heaven forbid the specs of and ipad is released and everyone calls bloody murder.  Everyday goes by and Apple is more of a pathetic company.

      • Anonymous

        The Chinese government pressed charges, not Apple. The Chinese government has to crack down every once in a while so they don’t lose big clients.

        Ironic, since the Chinese government usually turns a blind eye to knockoff companies. Sure that there are a bunch of “Aple” iPads being sold in China.

  • Anonymous

    Whoops someone forgot to bribe the right party official!!!!

  • whoswho

    This is pathetic.  I don’t care if this was China.  This is a freaking product that will be dead in two years.  People need to wake up and shit on Apple!

    • Anonymous

      People need to wake up use their heads and take a huge shit on the tech industry in general not just crApple.

  • Anonymous

    Considering these people were used by Foxxconn as dirt cheap assembly
    line machines my view is more power to these poor people. The Chinese
    govt is comprised of ruffians and murderers with no qualms towards
    controlling it’s population by using any and all brutal means necessary
    and it’s parasitic businessmen like Gou who capitalize on this type of
    political landscape. It’s rather amusing to me that the Chinese courts
    can pass sentence on these poor labor class folk all the while the govt
    it represents lies cheats steals and murders on a regular basis. The
    only two qualms I have about this incident is 1 to bad the workers
    didn’t get away with it and 2 to bad they couldn’t have caused more
    financial damage to Foxxconn. I also find it interesting that these
    kangaroo courts can pass judgement on these poor people yet the
    individuals who paid for the information have yet to be mentioned as
    being in the wrong.

    Congratulations to all the iPad lovers on
    this thread. You must all be ecstatic that these poor working peoples
    lives have been turned upside down. The fact that these poor people now
    have to pay huge monetary fines and are forced to serve sentences in one
    of the worlds most brutal prison systems because they took pictures of a
    stupid iToy must bring a smile to your faces. Considering the comments
    above I doubt any of you even realize your bratty attitudes and pathetic
    demands of not paying an extra 10, 20, 30 bucks for a over glorified
    iToy is an instrumental factor in ruining 100′s of thousands if not
    millions of lives for the sake of having the latest useless gadget for
    dirt cheap. I doubt any of you even realize it’s your demands to know
    about the latest Apple product before release date as well as third
    party manufacturers who rush at break neck speeds to get their crappy 50
    cent cases out ahead of time that fuel these leaks in the Foxxconn
    manufacturing production chain by offering quick much needed money to
    those who are in need. Self imposed ignorance must truly be bliss.

    • Anonymous

      These people stole, you think they’re innocent? They chose to do what they did. If you wanna get made and go macro, fine. Blame the Chinese government and society for creating a giant human factory nation. Blame American consumers for buying stuff made in China because it’s cheaper. A combination of factors contributed to the situation. But still, these people stole information, broke the criminal laws of where they live, and tried to profit from it.

      • Anonymous

        They took a stupid picture of a iPad and sold it to make extra money that they needed. If Foxxcon is really concerned about security then why don’t they stop treating people like garbage and start paying their employees appropriately. They didn’t mug some old guy in a back alley or jack a car they took a stupid picture and sold it. If Foxxconn and the govt wanted to do something about it fine have Foxxcon file a civil suit and fine them and be done with it. There was no need to throw them into Chinese jail which is known for being one of the most brutal jail systems on the planet. They took a stupid picture of an iPad that’s assembled in a sweat shop that generates billions in revenue every year, that’s it. They did it because they’re the Chinese working poor of Foxxconn and because they are underpaid and over worked they needed the money. You want to judge them then try judging them once you’ve walked in their shoes.

    • Anonymous

      Agreed, Chinese Gov. is in bed with many corps especially American owned corps and I believe had this been an American exec, punishment would have been 100 times more lenient then in China.  All I know is, Chinese citizens need to wake up and say, why can they be rich and we be poor and we work just as hard.

  • Anonymous

    Somebody has to be the example.

    Text king –> (469) 296-7605

  • Anonymous

    In America, execs don’t go to prison, they go to jail for a few months at club fed :)

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