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Wei Sun, 49, a Chinese national and naturalized U.S. citizen, was sentenced to 38 months in prison Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Rosemary Marquez.

Sun had pleaded guilty to one felony count of violating the Arms Export Control Act for taking a Raytheon laptop containing unclassified defense data on a trip to China from December 2018 to January 2019.

Sun was employed in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ for 10 years as an electrical engineer and had access to information directly related to sensitive missile technology, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Some of the defense technical information Sun had is defined as “defense articles,� which are controlled and prohibited from export without a license under the AECA and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

Prosecutors said Sun had been trained to handle the materials properly and knowingly transported the information to China without an export license, in violation of the AECA and the ITAR.

The government did not present any evidence that Sun had personally supplied any sensitive information to Chinese government agents.

“Sun was a highly skilled engineer entrusted with sensitive missile technology that he knew he could not legally transfer to hostile hands,� Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said. “Today’s sentence should stand as a warning to others who might be tempted similarly to put the nation’s security at risk.�

Sun’s attorney had no immediate comment.

Sean Kaul, special agent in charge of the FBI Phoenix Field Office, said Sun admitted to illegally exporting controlled weapons technology plans out of the U.S. to China.

“China represents the greatest counterintelligence threat to our nation’s protected information and intellectual property,� he said.