People v. Gopal

Opinion

ANDERSON, J. *

Appellant Peter K. Gopal, together with Lee Yamada, Jim Catanich, and Andrew Moore, 1 was indicted in 1978 2 on a total of 23 counts relating to events surrounding the alleged theft of trade secrets from Silicon Valley firms manufacturing semiconductors and computer chip devices. In essence, the investigation involved a “sting” operation in which appellant offered to sell and then delivered stolen property to corporate security officers resulting in his arrest, the issuance of a search warrant, and the seizure of additional stolen property.

After lengthy pretrial…