Fired Ford Engineer at Center of FBI Probe on Secret Listening Devices

An attorney for former Ford engineer under a federal probe for bugging some meeting rooms at the automaker’s world headquarters in Dearborn says secret listening devices were planted so she could be accurate in her note taking at meetings, not for corporate espionage or to steal trade secrets.

Sharon Leach, 43, the engineer at the center of a case in U.S. District Court, turned over the eight devices after Ford security officials got wind of them in late June and was subsequently fired, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Leach’s attorney, Marshall Tauber, said his client was a loyal Ford employee until she was fire and “wasn’t out there trying to do something that would be against her employer’s interest.” She had worked for the company for 16 years as a mechanical engineer.

After the discovery of the listening devices, Ford Motor Co. initiated an investigation and asked for the assistance of the FBI, a spokeswoman said.

According to court documents, the FBI seized the listening devices from Ford on July 11. After the was fired in June, the FBI had served a search warrant at Leach’s Wyandotte home and seized about two doen items, including bank statements, tax records, a buy.com shipping bag, a Post-it note with numbers, two laptop computers, three flash drives, two IBM Thinkpads, a Visa credit card, a T-Mobile Google phone,and a key chain with keys that had been labeled “do not duplicate,” the newspaper said.

Tauber said his client has been “cooperative” during the investigation and voluntarily turned over the devices after Ford security became suspicious when they saw her leaving and returning to the same conference room on multiple occasions. When confronted, she acknowledged she was recording the meetings because she wanted to be accurate in her note taking of meetings her team was involved in.

Tauber said “there is nothing to indicate” Leach was involved in criminal conduct. She has not been charged with a crime.

“She’s nervous, of course,” he said. “Who wouldn’t be?”

» Read the full story on the Detroit Free Press.