In announcing its decision Tuesday, the jury also awarded Carpenter $350,000 for emotional distress and more than $36,000 for lost wages, benefits and other costs.

A spokesman from Sandia expressed "disappointment" with the verdict and said the lab will consider whether to appeal it or not.

The highly publicized case involved Carpenter's investigation of a network break-in at Sandia in 2003.

After initially telling superiors about the incident, Carpenter launched an independent, months-long investigation during which he used hacking techniques of his own to eventually trace the attacks back to a Chinese cyberespionage group. The group called Titan Rain by federal authorities was believed responsible for carrying out similar attacks against a large number of U.S. government, military and commercial interests.

Carpenter shared information from his investigation, initially with individuals at the Army Counterintelligence Group and later with the FBI.