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posted by n1 on Tuesday July 07 2015, @08:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the banking-conduct-that-warrants-prosecution dept.

The New York Times and The Register report that former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov's conviction for "unlawful use of secret scientific material" has been overturned:

[...] celebration may not last long. State prosecutors in Manhattan have already indicated they may appeal the decision issued Monday, which threw out a jury's verdict. Once before, Mr. Aleynikov had believed he was in the clear, when a federal appeals court overturned his conviction under a federal corporate espionage law in 2012. The appellate court ruled that federal prosecutors in Manhattan had misapplied the law, and it ordered Mr. Aleynikov to be immediately released from a federal prison.

Less than a year later, however, Mr. Aleynikov was back in court defending himself, after state prosecutors in Manhattan charged him with violating state computer-theft-related laws. Now Justice Conviser — much like the federal appellate court before him — ruled that the decades-old state law that Mr. Aleynikov was convicted of violating did not apply to the accusations against him.

Justice Conviser said he did not find sufficient legal evidence to support the jury's conviction in May, which came after eight days of deliberation and two dozen requests for testimony to be read back or the statute's arcane terminology to be explained. He said the jury's confusion had been understandable, given that the "unlawful use of secret scientific material" criminal statute that Mr. Aleynikov was charged with violating was enacted in 1967 and predates much of the digital age. The judge said the state law was out of step with modern electronic communications and needed to be amended. He said that if prosecutors wanted to criminalize the kind of conduct Mr. Aleynikov engaged in when he downloaded portions of Goldman's source code onto his personal computer before leaving for a new job in June 2009, they should petition the Legislature to either amend the statute or pass a new law.

"We update our criminal laws in this country, however, through the legislative process," Justice Conviser said. "Defendants cannot be convicted of crimes because we believe as a matter of policy that their conduct warrants prosecution." A conviction on a charge of unlawful use of secret scientific material required prosecutors to prove that Mr. Aleynikov had made a "tangible" reproduction of the files he downloaded. But in his ruling on Monday, Justice Conviser said prosecutors had not submitted any evidence that the source code downloaded by Mr. Aleynikov "could be touched" or had "physical form," which is the essence of something being tangible. [...] The judge noted that the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York supported several legislative proposals to "modernize" the state's criminal laws with regard to computer crime.

Here is our previous story on Aleynikov's conviction.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by gargoyle on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:33AM

    by gargoyle (1791) on Tuesday July 07 2015, @10:33AM (#206055)

    The second one, they want a conviction, so they are trawling every law they can find which might result in one.

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