In my sci fi short story I'm working on, a company called Generation sometime in the future, develops a viral based treatment for a new kind of cancer that has arisen in young children. Around fifteen years later, the treatment was effective, but at this time begins causing mutations in teens who received the treatment as children. Having been used across the world, it now sparks a company crisis as people begin jumping ship, particularly executives.
One of these employees that jumps ship is the protagonist's father. Distraught with the lack of concern from company leadership, who don't care about trying to find a cure to the problem they helped create, the father and others steal valuable data on the virus from the company as the crisis unfolds, and then following their departure from the company, set up several new labs where they are making use of their data to try to find a cure.
All this laid out, my question is, what sorts of legal charges might the father face if he is found out?
Possible scenarios
- local authorities find out first and are the ones to make the charges.
- Generation finds out he was one of the ones involved, and a newly formed company by the old execs that takes control of Generation's assets makes the charges
- the government makes the charges, but only after Generation's full amount of criminal negligence regarding management of the crisis is laid bare.
From what I am to understand, the father would probably be accused of some kind of embezzlement for stealing the data, but considering the fact that he and other employees that stole assets organized together to complete the act, I think that conspiracy may be involved as well.
Edit:
For the sake of this question, let us base answers on current United States law, assuming that this company is also based in the country.