Former OpenAI Engineer Pleads Not Guilty to Planting Covert Device in Executive Meeting Room
Summary: Former OpenAI engineer Abdulrahman Alfozan, a 35-year-old Saudi national, pleaded not guilty in San Francisco federal court on Friday to a single count of interception of oral communications for allegedly planting a covert recording device in an OpenAI executive conference room. He was arrested on October 9, 2026, three days before a scheduled one-way flight to Riyadh, has been held without bail since, and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted, with his next hearing set for November 17, 2026.
Bottom line: Prosecutors allege Alfozan built bespoke encrypted devices to capture senior OpenAI meetings and was in frequent WhatsApp contact with a member of the Saudi Royal Family, while his wife and son left San Francisco for Doha on a Saudi military-booked business-class ticket about 36 hours after his arrest.
Read the original at The Hacker News ↗
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