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Freedom tastes great — just ask Sergey Aleynikov.
The former Goldman Sachs computer programmer was sprung from prison yesterday after serving nearly a year behind bars — a day after a federal appeals court tossed a jury verdict that found him guilty of economic espionage.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara had prosecuted the 42-year-old father of three for stealing Goldman’s computer code, used for its controversial high-frequency trading platform.
“Justice occasionally works,” said Aleynikov, standing outside Manhattan federal court, his voice cracking with emotion. He was set free without conditions.
Aleynikov, an amateur ballroom dancer, said he couldn’t wait to see his three daughters, ages 8, 6 and 3.
Sporting a grey sweatsuit, white sneakers and black-framed glasses, Aleynikov told reporters that he “jumped all over the place” when he received an e-mail from his lawyer, Kevin Marino, early yesterday morning.
The e-mail said simply: “We won.”
Marino didn’t waste any time in laying blame for what he believes was an ill-thought-out prosecution.
“What went wrong here was Goldman Sachs has enormous power and they were able to very easily persuade the US Attorney to pursue criminal charges against this programmer,” Marino told The Post in a telephone interview.
A spokeswoman for Bharara declined to comment, as did a Goldman spokesperson.
Aleynikov, a Russian native, had been sentenced to eight years in prison last March . He was convicted by a New York jury after prosecutors said he stole the computer code to use at a new job.
Aleynikov’s lawyers argued that most of the code he took was open source, or public, and that his biggest crime was violating Goldman’s confidentiality agreement.
The appeals court action is a black eye for Bharara, whose reputation as a tough fighter of Wall Street crime is gaining Main Street cred.
The Aleynikov verdict turnaround was dramatic.
On Thursday, Marino argued his case before a three-judge appeals panel — which usually takes weeks to render an opinion. It decided the Aleynikov case in about an hour.
The Circuit Court panel has yet to release its written opinion explaining the decision, but the speedy nature of the move raised questions about whether downloading proprietary computer code constitutes a crime.
Yesterday, Marino, who has long argued that this case should have remained in the civil domain, yesterday called the charges against his client a “radical exaggeration” of the law and said his client suffered a “wrong-headed prosecution that should never have been brought.”
Aleynikov was convicted of stealing secrets in violation of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, and interstate transportation of stolen property.
During the appeals court hearing on Thursday, the judges seemed to lean toward Marino’s position, including questioning prosecutors on how Aleynikov’s crime is different from taking an employee manual to a new job, according to Bloomberg.