A former OpenAI engineer charged with secretly installing a recording device in a conference room to glean company details had been \u201cmere days\u201d away from absconding to Saudi Arabia before his arrest last week, federal prosecutors revealed in new court filings. <\/p>\n
Abdulrahman Alfozan\u2019s wife and young son also left the country the day after the 35-year-old Saudi national\u2019s arrest, traveling on a one-way ticket booked and paid for by a Saudi military official, prosecutors said in a memo Sunday seeking his continued detention.<\/p>\n
\u201cUltimately, the defendant has little incentive to remain in the United States to see this case through,\u201d federal prosecutors wrote. \u201cHe has ample resources \u2014including his significant compensation from a decade of high-tech employment in the Bay Area and at least two bank accounts in Saudi Arabia \u2014 and what appears to be considerable support from a foreign government.\u201d<\/p>\n
A federal judge in San Francisco sided with prosecutors Monday, denying a request by Alfozan\u2019s lawyers to release him to home confinement. His next court date is Nov.<\/p>\n
Alfozan\u2019s lawyer William Pernik argued in court that his client had strong ties to the U.S. and was \u201cweeks away from achieving every immigrant\u2019s dream\u201d \u2014 U.S. citizenship. <\/p>\n
Alfozan had a naturalization interview with federal officials scheduled next month and has been a lawful permanent resident since 2020, his lawyers said in their legal filings. He has also lived in the U.S. for 15 years and attended MIT and the University of California, Berkeley, they said.<\/p>\n
Pernik said Alfozan is willing to put up \u201calmost the entirety\u201d of his assets \u2014 about $1 million currently in a U.S. investment account \u2014 to cover his bond.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything this man has he\u2019s willing to surrender,\u201d he said, adding that Alfozan’s wife is also willing to return to the U.S. as she still holds a visitor visa that expires in 2033. <\/p>\n
Judge Alex Tse appeared doubtful, questioning whether Saudi Arabia\u2019s government would simply reimburse Alfozan if he fled and forfeited his bond.<\/p>\n
After the hearing, Pernik said he was disappointed with the ruling but declined further comment.<\/p>\n
Pernik had argued in court filings that Alfozan purchased one-way tickets for his family to Saudi Arabia more than two weeks before prosecutors allege the recording devices were installed. They said the couple planned to spend Alfozan\u2019s roughly two-month paternity leave in Saudi Arabia following the birth of their U.S.-citizen son.<\/p>\n
But prosecutors said Saudi officials purchased new plane tickets for Alfozan\u2019s wife and son after his arrest, allowing them to leave the U.S. sooner than the Oct. 12 flight Alfozan had originally booked.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors have not said what Alfozan might have wanted to do with the recordings, but say he was in \u201cfrequent communication\u201d with a member of the Saudi royal family. They said the royal family member repeatedly tried to recruit Alfozan to an artificial intelligence venture being launched in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
Alfozan had told the unnamed person he wouldn\u2019t leave OpenAI until his stock was vested, even as he explored other career opportunities in the Middle Eastern kingdom, prosecutors wrote. He had worked at the ChatGPT maker since July 2025 but was fired after his arrest. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Alfozan concealed an audio recording device in toilet paper and plugged it into a USB port on the back of a television in an executive conference room he wasn\u2019t authorized to access. They say security cameras captured him entering the room and checking behind the television after installing the device. It remained there for several days before being found Sept. 30.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say the conference room was typically used for meetings involving company leaders, government officials and other executives and \u201cdiscussions of highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic information, including proprietary research, as well as nonpublic information.\u201d<\/p>\n
OpenAI has said the recording device Alfozan used was sophisticated, designed to evade detection and featured advanced encryption and audio-monitoring capabilities. They also said they had evidence Alfozan planned to place other listening devices elsewhere in the office.<\/p>\n
Alfozan has been charged with using or endeavoring to use an electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept oral communications. If convicted, he faces a five-year prison sentence.<\/p>\n
__<\/p>\n
Marcelo reported from New York. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former OpenAI engineer charged with secretly installing a recording device in a conference room to glean company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-501425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}