Luminar founder Austin Russell agrees to plead guilty to defrauding

Luminar founder and former CEO Austin Russell has agreed to give up his company-related phone information, as part of the lidar maker’s continued business expansion, according to a new report. reservation Tuesday.

Russell now has seven days to file a motion to overturn the decision, or contest it — or else he has 14 days to comply, according to the filing.

A deal comes up two weeks later Luminar’s lawyers accused Russell of avoiding accountability by removing servers from the gate of his Florida mansion. Russell argued that he was not ready to turn over his phone until he received assurances from Luminar that his personal information would be protected; Tuesday indicated that the two sides agreed to explain how the information will be handled.

Luminar has been sent to Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December after losing major contracts with customers such as Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, as well as increasing competition from lidar companies in China.

Luminar partnered last week with a company called Quantum Computing Inc. (QCI) to sell its lidar assets for $22 million. (Luminar is also trying to sell its semiconductor division to QCI for $110 million.) Luminar has scheduled an auction later this month to test businesses that could win QCI’s offering.

Russell tried to buy Luminar in October, months after he abruptly resigned as CEO amid an ethics investigation, but before the company filed for bankruptcy. Representatives of his new business, Russell AI Labs, told TechCrunch that they are still interested in bidding for Luminar’s lidar assets, but an offer has yet to be made.

Luminar has been seeking information from Mr Russell since his resignation as it considers legal action against him. The founder has already converted several computers but still uses his phone for privacy reasons. (At first Luminar said it wanted two phones from Russell, one provided by the company and one personal. Russell has claimed in court that he only had one phone during his time at Luminar.)