Ex-Goldman ‘flash boy’ wins right to appeal his conviction

The nearly eight-year legal odyssey of former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov is not over, after New York State’s highest court agreed to review his reinstated conviction for stealing high-frequency trading code.

Aleynikov may appeal because “questions of law are involved which ought to be reviewed,” the Court of Appeals said in an order dated April 20.

The tale of the dual US and Russian citizen helped inspire Michael Lewis’ bestselling book “Flash Boys” on high-frequency trading in the US equity market.

The order came nearly three months after an intermediate appeals court in Manhattan voted 5-0 to revive Aleynikov’s conviction on one count of stealing Goldman code as he prepared to join a Chicago start-up, Teza Technologies.

That vote reinstated a May 2015 jury verdict that was later overturned by the trial judge.

A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, whose office prosecuted Aleynikov, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Kevin Marino, a lawyer for Aleynikov, said he was “thrilled” the Court of Appeals will review his client’s conviction for “violating an outmoded, clearly inapplicable criminal statute.”

Aleynikov was arrested on federal charges in July 2009 and convicted in December 2010, only to be exonerated by a federal appeals court in February 2012 after serving 11 months of an eight-year prison sentence.

Vance then filed state criminal charges against Aleynikov in August 2012.
In reinstating Aleynikov’s second conviction on Jan. 24, the Appellate Division said Vance offered “legally sufficient” evidence that Aleynikov intended to steal “secret scientific material” from Goldman, violating a 1967 New York state law.

It said the trial judge, Daniel Conviser, who had thrown out the conviction, appeared to have wrongly believed that the stolen code needed to be printed on paper for Aleynikov to be guilty.

“The statute was drafted with broad generalized language that fits squarely into today’s digital world,” Justice Rosalyn Richter wrote for the Appellate Division.
Aleynikov has said he intended the code only for his own use.