NEW YORK (AP) – A computer programmer accused of stealing confidential Goldman Sachs computer code was found guilty Friday for a second time, after being convicted, cleared and then charged anew by a different prosecutor.
This time, a Manhattan jury convicted Sergey Aleynikov of one of three counts against him, following a bizarre trial in which a juror accused another of tampering with her lunch during deliberations. Aleynikov was acquitted on a second count, and the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on the third.
“As today’s verdict demonstrates, the misappropriation of proprietary information is a crime,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said in a statement.
Defense lawyer Kevin Marino had argued that Aleynikov violated Goldman Sachs’ confidentiality policy but didn’t commit any crime. The verdict, with its mix of conviction, acquittal and deadlock, showed jurors were befuddled by the charges, he said.
“You’ve had a jury struggling with this” because the case hinged on legal questions, not factual ones, he said.