An Iranian-born software engineer who stole US nuclear power training software he had written to show his relatives back home now faces 15 years in jail.

Mohammad Reza Alavi, 50, pleaded guilty to the charge in a deal reached Tuesday with federal prosecutors. Another charge against him was dropped. He was also convicted Alavi last month of illegally accessing a protected computer but could not make its mind up on two other charges. He will be sentenced in September and could go down for 15 years.

Alavi, was a naturalised US citizen who was born in Iran, worked for Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station west of Phoenix for 17 years. The court heard that when he quit his job he took a laptop to Iran that contained training software with design schematics and other details of the plant.

Palo Verde officials admitted that there was no security threat involved in the information, but prosecutors said Alavi knew he was breaking federal law when he brought the software to Iran and then downloaded codes to show it to his family. X

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