Montreal engineer heads to U.S. prison for stealing trade secrets from General Electric

In this Friday, Feb. 2, 2018 file photo, wind turbines stand in a field near Northwood, Iowa, USA. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, file)

Montreal -

A Montreal engineer was sentenced to two years in a U.S. prison Wednesday for conspiring to steal trade secrets from General Electric.

Jean Patrice Delia, age 46, was working for GE in upstate New York when he used the company's trade secrets, "stolen marketing data" and pricing information, among other information, to compete with his employer.

He shared the information with a co-conspirator, Miguel Sernas, a Mexican citizen who was convicted in the same case and sentenced in 2019, the release said.

Delia was investigated by the FBI and pleaded guilty almost two years ago, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release Wednesday announcing his sentencing.

"As part of his guilty plea entered on December 10, 2019, Delia admitted that he conspired with his business partner and co-defendant, Miguel Sernas," using the stolen information, the authorities wrote.

Delia admitted that he and Sernas were operating as "ThermoGen Power Services" and used the trade secrets "to compete against GE around the world."

There appears to be a strong Canadian, and Montreal, connection to the case: Thermogen Power Services, whose website is still in operation, lists head offices in Canada and Mexico, with a phone number with a Montreal area code.

Online, the company's address is listed as being in downtown Montreal, on Robert-Bourassa Blvd.

It offers services to power plant companies, especially performance testing of the plants, according to the website. That includes gas, wind and solar turbines and fossil-fuel boilers.

Delia worked as an engineer for GE in Schenectady, New York, near Albany, from 2001 through 2012, according to U.S. authorities.

He admitted to conspiring with Sernas from 2008 through 2019.

Both men have been ordered to pay restitution of $1.4 million each as well as sentenced to jail time.

Sernas was sentenced on Dec. 10, 2019 to time served, about a year in jail.

In Delia's case, the judge "ordered [him] to jail, denying his request for a date on which to self-report to prison."

A LinkedIn profile for a J.P. Delia, the owner of Thermogen Power Services, says he attended Concordia University for mechanical engineering.

After many years at GE, beginning as a power plant performance specialist, he lists himself as working full-time at his own company since 2012.

Thermogen's website lists projects in countries including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Peru, the U.S. and many other countries.

The only project in Canada appeared to be a review of two biomass plants in B.C.

"Since its founding more than a decade ago, TGPS has executed projects providing thermal performance engineering services to hundreds of power plants of all technologies in all continents," the company said.