Man sentenced in $157,000 theft from Naperville tech company
BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com January 28, 2013 11:08PM
Hai V. Pham, of Houston, has been ordered to make restitution in the May 2011 theft of more than $150,000 worth of computer hardware from Alcatel-Lucent Technology in Naperville.
Updated: March 2, 2013 6:40AM
A man from Texas has been ordered to make restitution in the 2011 theft of nearly $160,000 worth of computer hardware from the Alcatel-Lucent technology company on Naperville’s far northeast side.
Naperville police said Hai V. Pham was working as a subcontractor on the company’s computer network when he stole the industrial-grade hardware.
Pham, 51, of Houston, was found guilty of a felony charge of theft or unauthorized control over $100,000 but not more than $500,000, according to DuPage County Circuit Court records.
Judge George J. Bakalis on Friday ordered Pham to make $16,900 restitution to the company, records indicated. Bakalis also placed Pham on two years of conditional discharge — a form of probation — and assessed fines and court costs totaling $775, records showed.
Naperville police in June received information from Alcatel-Lucent’s technology investigation team about the “internal theft” of computer hardware from a laboratory on the company’s campus at 2000 Naperville-Wheaton Road, Sgt. John Westlove said.
That investigation showed the theft occurred in May 2011, Westlove said last year. The $157,000 worth of stolen goods included computer hard drives and circuit packs. Security cameras caught Pham making off with the property.
Westlove said Pham was arrested in April and held in the Galveston County, Texas, jail. Pham refused to waive extradition to Illinois, forcing authorities to obtain a Texas governor’s warrant to bring him to DuPage County, Westlove said.
Most of the equipment was returned prior to Pham’s sentencing. He faced a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
