The U.S. Department of Justice reports that a Chelmsford man has been found guilty for his role in stealing computer chip manufacturing and design documents from Intel Corporation in Hudson, Mass.

Bishwamohan Pani, 36, was sentenced to three years followed by two years of supervised release and ordered to pay a fine of $17,500 yesterday after pleading guilty in April 2012 on five counts of wire fraud.

Pani had been working at Intel before secretly obtaining a new job with a competitor, Advanced Micro Devices, ultimately leaving Intel altogether in June of that year.

Prior to his departure, Pani had begun downloading numerous secret proprietary Intel documents beginning in late May, just before announcing he would begin looking for a new job, as well as in early June, when he had begun working for Advanced Micro Devices without Intel’s knowledge.

On June 11, Pani falsely reported that he had not retained any of Intel’s property and a month later the FBI discovered the documents he had taken from Intel, which the company estimated at a minimum of $200 to $400 million.

According to the DOJ release, there was no evidence that Advanced Micro Devices asked Pani to take the documents, and had no idea that he had taken them.

The report also indicated that they were cooperative with the FBI investigation, citing that Pani took the documents to advance his own career either with AMD or a future employer.