Court overturns the second conviction of Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov charged with stealing high-frequency trading code
‘Flash Boys’ Programmer in Goldman Case Prevails Second Time … A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. programmer who took the firm's high-frequency trading code …
Context & Ripple Effects
Sergey Aleynikov has now beaten the same charge twice. A jury returned a guilty verdict on a split count in May, three years after his first conviction was reversed, and the court has now overturned that second conviction as well.
Alongside the criminal fight, Aleynikov escalated to civil claims: in February he sued the FBI agents who arrested him for malicious prosecution. Each reversal strengthens that case's factual premise — that the arrest itself lacked basis.
First-order effects
- Aleynikov is cleared of the code-theft charge for the second time, and his pending malicious-prosecution suit against the arresting FBI agents gains a court finding that undercuts the prosecution's theory.
Second-order effects
- Federal prosecutors must decide whether a third attempt is defensible after two reversals — the same calculus behind the recent choice not to pursue a second trial against Sam Bankman-Fried, where much of the evidence had already been aired.
Third-order effects
- If retrials of white-collar cases keep collapsing on review, prosecutors will face rising pressure to get the first trial right rather than rely on a second bite, shifting leverage toward defendants with resources to litigate through multiple rounds.
The trend: US white-collar prosecutions are entering an era where a first conviction is no longer treated as durable, and the decision to retry is becoming its own legal battleground.