Ex-IBM employee from China pleads guilty to code theft charges

By Brendan PiersonNEW YORK (Reuters) - A former software engineer for IBM in China pleaded guilty on Friday to stealing proprietary source code from the company, federal prosecutors announced on Friday.Jiaqiang Xu, 31, pleaded guilty to economic espionage and theft of a trade secret before U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains, New York, prosecutors said.Leanne Marek, Xu's attorney, declined to comment.