RELIEF: Sergey Aleynikov walks as a freeman last Friday after appeals court Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs threw out his conviction. (AP)
RELIEF: Sergey Aleynikov walks as a free man last Friday after appeals court Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs (inset) threw out his conviction. (
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The first thing Sergey Aleynikov should do is go to Disney World with his three young daughters. When he gets back, Sergey should file the Mother Of All Lawsuits against Goldman Sachs.
Aleynikov didn’t win the Super Bowl, he won something bigger — his freedom.
The 42-year-old New Jersey resident is the computer programmer who spent the last year in jail because Goldman used its clout in Washington to get him arrested.
Nearly three years ago, the Wall Street firm said that Aleynikov stole proprietary computer codes — black-box kind of stuff — that somebody with bad intentions could use “to manipulate the (stock) market in unfair ways.”
Keep that quote in mind, because it comes from an FBI agent who was working the case. And the agent’s words are important if you want to understand the broader implications of what might be going on here.
But first, you need to know a little more about Aleynikov.
He always admitted that he downloaded some material from his computer as he was leaving his $400,000 a year job at Goldman for one that would have paid him $1 million at another firm.
That admission almost guaranteed his conviction in the jury trial.
But Aleynikov and his lawyer, Kevin Marino, also contended that what he took was junk — nothing as important as what Goldman alleged. Nothing, for sure, that should have caused Goldman to call the FBI and have Aleynikov handcuffed and arrested as he was stepping off a flight at Newark Airport.
As I said in a column more than a year ago, this sort of dispute usually ends up in civil court. Goldman would make its allegations, Aleynikov would present his defense, and the matter would have been dealt with in a monetary way.
In criminal courts, this was a crap indictment — a waste of taxpayer money. Last Thursday, a federal appeals court agreed.
It threw out Aleynikov’s conviction and released him from the Fort Dix, NJ, prison. At first, the appeals court even ruled that Aleynikov should be deemed acquitted of the charges; soon after, however, it left open the possibility that the government could appeal.
The government won’t. Why get off the canvas when you’ve been knocked down this hard?
I couldn’t get Aleynikov on the phone yesterday, but I did speak with Marino, who said the actions by Goldman and the government have been incredibly damaging to his client, even if he is now a free man.
“It’s a disaster,” says Marino, who added that Aleynikov and his wife, Elina, are now divorced. “It was more than she could take,” said Marino.
“What happened to Sergey Aleynikov is an object lesson of what can happen when the awesome power of government is manipulated by a private entity,” Marino told me.
But what was really behind the case?
Remember the quote about the computer code. As I also asked in my columns last year — What was Goldman doing with trading programs like that?
And: How and why did the firm possess the ability to “manipulate the market in unfair ways”?
And lastly: Why was this case so important that the government tried — and failed — to have it closed to the press?
This story isn’t over yet.
If Aleynikov does file the Mother Of All Lawsuits against Goldman, perhaps then we’ll know more about the cozy relationship between that firm and places like the US Treasury Department, which was being run by Goldman alum Hank Paulson when Aleynikov was arrested.
My guess is that Aleynikov’s civil suit will be settled quickly. There’s just too much Washington and Wall Street don’t want us to know.
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Congress decided last week to sell public airwaves to pay its bills.
This is a big deal in the media world. These airwaves are like the highways that TV stations use to speed shows to your house.
But if Congress can sell public airwaves, why can’t it dispose of other things owned by the government?
Who isn’t in the market for a closed military base? A tank? Some field rations?
And, as I mentioned in previous columns, just think of the possible income from naming rights on local and federal government properties.