A Saudi engineer accused of secretly bugging OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters while employed there pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court.
Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, went back to jail after a short appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Kang, who scheduled his next hearing for Nov. 17. His attorney declined to comment once the proceeding ended.
The case rests on a one-count indictment that grand jurors returned on Oct. 27, charging him with intercepting oral communications. A conviction could bring up to five years behind bars.
Prosecutors allege that on Sept. 28 he concealed a recorder inside a TV set in a meeting room reserved for OpenAI executives. Authorities first took him into custody in early October under a criminal complaint, and he has been denied bail ever since.
Outside his job at the artificial intelligence company, Alfozan is a venture partner at Raed Ventures, a Saudi venture capital firm. His profile on the firm's website describes him as an engineering lead at OpenAI working on AI agents and the data platform.
Raed Ventures also lists as a venture partner Prince Khalid Bin Bader Al Saud, who belongs to the Saudi royal family.
