Design engineer Biswamohan Pani, who previously worked for Intel, was charged on Wednesday with four counts of wire fraud, which will be added to his August charge of trade secret theft. The incident occurred at the same time with his decision to leave Intel and join Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) in June. The information was evaluated at more than $1 billion in research and development costs.

Apparently, Pani announced Intel’s officials that he was leaving the company in order to focus on a job at a hedge fund, but immediately began working for AMD. The indictment notes that the engineer accessed Intel’s computer network and copied 13 top secret documents and also other confidential, proprietary and sensitive information related to the company’s activities. Intel demanded the involvement of the FBI and also of the Justice Department, in order to gather all the needed proof to build up the case.

Mr. Pani is currently free on a $100,000 bail, but if the court finds him guilty, he might be looking at a 10-year jail term for the trade secret indictment, 20 years for each of his four wire fraud charges and also a $250,000 fine for each of the counts.

Pani's attorney, Bradford Bailey, talked to ABC News, firmly denying any involvement of his client in the matters presented by Intel: "Mr. Pani will be pleading not guilty at his upcoming arraignment. He denies the charges and will vigorously defend them." Even though he claims that he is innocent, AMD did not consider the collaboration appropriate and Mr. Pani is no longer involved with the company.