The FBI has seized a former Ford engineer's email account as part of an investigation into why the worker placed listening devices into conference rooms in the automaker's world headquarters, the Detroit News reported.
Sharon Leach, 43, who had been a Ford employee for 17 years, has not been charged with a crime but is under investigation for hiding listening devices before meetings. Ford has been working with authorities in a joint investigation.
"We continue to work with the FBI on this investigation that we initiated and requested assistance on from the FBI," Ford spokeswoman Susan Krusel told the News.
The FBI is requiring copies of all emails sent and received from Leach's work email account as well as draft emails, contact lists, pictures, files and more. One personal email account and eight listening devices had previously been seized as part of the investigation, and the FBI last month searched the former Ford engineer's home in Wyandotte.
When Leach's home was searched on June 20, the FBI took "more than two dozen items, including several desktop and laptop computers, a credit card, thumb drives and financial records."
According to her lawyer, Leach hid the devices under tables to make it easier to transcribe meetings. She was fired in June when she confessed to using the recording devices, which were left in the rooms and documented other meetings.
"It didn't involve anything of a spying nature," lawyer Marshall Tauber told the News last month. "She wanted to record conversations of meetings she attended but didn't know how to do it. She was insecure about her note-taking."
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