Sergey Aleynikov Sues FBI Agents Who Arrested Him
I read Michael Lewis's article in Vanity Fair about this case back in 2013, and I remember being struck by this excerpt in particular:<p><i>[Goldman] called the F.B.I. in haste, just two days before, and then put their agent through what amounted to a crash course on high-frequency trading and computer programming. McSwain later conceded that he didn’t seek out independent expert advice to study the code Serge Aleynikov had taken. (“I relied on statements from Goldman employees.”) He himself had no idea of the value of the stolen code (“Representatives of Goldman told me it was worth a lot of money”) or if any of it was actually all that special (he based his belief that the code contained trade secrets on “representations made by members of Goldman Sachs”)...The F.B.I.’s investigation before the arrest consisted of trusting Goldman’s explanation of some extremely complicated stuff, and 48 hours after Goldman called the F.B.I., Serge was arrested.</i><p>That, as the complaint highlights, the FBI instinctively acted as Goldman's punitive arm rather than conducting an independent investigation into the facts of the case is disturbing, regardless of the merit of the allegations.<p><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer" rel="nofollow">http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman...</a>