GE employee charged with stealing company's trade secrets

Federal prosecutors say an engineer at General Electric's upstate New York turbine manufacturing plant has been charged with stealing the company's trade secrets.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Wednesday 55-year-old Xiaoqing Zheng (JOW'-shing zehng) removed electronic files with company trade secrets involving its turbine technologies and hid data files in a digital photograph of a sunset. Prosecutors say he then emailed the picture to his email account.

FBI agents took Zheng away in handcuffs earlier Wednesday at his home in Niskayuna (nihs-kee-YOO'-nuh), 10 miles (16 kilometers) northwest of Albany.

The neighboring city of Schenectady (skeh-NEHK'-ta-dee) is home to Boston-based GE's power division, which makes turbines.

During a brief court appearance Zheng was ordered detained. He's scheduled to return to court Thursday, when he's expected to get a lawyer.

GE says it has cooperated in the FBI investigation.