Uber Technologies Inc.’s long, bad year just got worse.

The judge presiding over its case with Waymo today unsealed a document that reveals for the first time that the ride-hailing company is currently subject to a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The letter in question, dated Nov. 22, details an investigation into claims that Uber employees had used electronic devices separate from Uber’s normal network to store and transmit information they did not want on the record. Moreover, former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick met with now-former Otto head Anthony Levandowski “covertly for a long period of time” before Uber’s acquisition of the self-driving truck company.

The letter gives context to the decision by a federal judge hearing the Waymo v. Uber case to suspend the trial Nov. 28. At the time, the judge said the suspension was to give Waymo’s lawyers time to consider new evidence suggesting that Uber trained its employees to steal trade secrets, based on testimony from former Uber security analyst Richard Jacobs.

Jacobs, who is also cited in the DOJ letter, claimed among other things that Uber had kept hidden evidence relevant to the case from both Waymo and the court by training employees to “evade, impede, obstruct, influence several ongoing lawsuits against Uber.” Jacobs specifically said that those Uber teams used anonymous servers that were separate from Uber’s main systems, which was intended to “ensure we didn’t create a paper trail that came back to haunt the company in any potential civil or criminal litigation.”

Jacobs also claimed that Uber hired someone in 2016 to recruit employees from Uber’s competitors in order to steal trade secrets from them. Although Uber’s employment practices were not directly mentioned by the DOJ, the letter did note that Jacobs believes that Uber’s secret servers could have been used to store stolen intellectual property to prevent it being discovered in an investigation.

What potential criminal law breaches Uber is being investigated for was not mentioned in the letter. But Ars Technica reported that, based on the prosecutors who have signed the letter, Uber may be under investigation for possible crimes under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Waymo first accused Uber of stealing its self-driving car technology in February before filing a civil suit seeking up to $2.6 billion in damages. The trial is ongoing.

Photo: senatormarkwarner/Flickr