‘ Crossing Goldman’
Where’s the crime? Aleynikov’sy lawyer asks
Sergey Aleynikov, the former Goldman Sachs programmer accused of stealing company secrets, violated a confidentiality agreement with the bank — but that doesn’t make it a crime, lawyers for the 45yearold defendant told a jury Wednesday.
“The only thing Sergey Aleynikov is guilty of is crossing Goldman Sachs,” lawyer Kevin Marino said at the opening of trial in Manhattan state court.
Violating a policy “cannot be converted into a criminal offense, nomatter howpowerful your company is,” Marino said.
District Attorney Cyrus Vance has pursued a criminal case against Aleynikov over copying the Goldman “secret sauce” despite the fact that a federal appeals court in 2012 overturned a 2010 conviction on similar charges.
Vance’s case — charging the Russia native with possession of unlawful duplication of computerrelatedmaterial— doesn’t violate double jeopardy protections, a state court judge ruled last year, because it was brought by a state prosecutor and not the feds.
At issue is 32 megabytes of code from the bank’s highfrequency trading programs that Aleynikov uploaded to an external server in violation of the bank’s confidentiality policy, which he signed and willfully breached, in order to study, the court learned.
“There is absolutely no doubt that [ he] violated that policy — intentionally violatedthatpolicy,” Marinosaid.
Marinoarguedthe charges aren’t justified under state law because Goldman can’t point to having lost economic benefits from the duplicated code.
“Private companies don’t make the criminal laws,” the lawyer added, telling the jury the case should, at best, be adjudicated as a civil matter between Goldman and his client.
Aleynikov, who was arrested by the FBI at Newark Airport in 2009, is one of the inspirations for the 2014 Michael Lewis best seller, “Flash Boys.”
Before the federal appeals court overturned his conviction, Aleynikov had served one year of his eightyear prison sentence.
Under the state charges, the programmer faces 1 ¹ / ₃ to four years inprison.
The federal court jury originally found him guilty of breaking corporate espionage laws.
Prosecutors hit a snag in the case lastweekwhen they showed up in court unprepared to go to trial, forcing a fourday postponement.
Wednesday’s opening hit another snag when a juror became sick in the morning.
Duringanafternoonbreak, Marino complained to Justice DanielConviser thatAssistant District Attorney Jeremy Glickman was “rude” and had made faces at the jury during the defense’s opening arguments.