The state prosecution was initiated based on a complaint signed by the same federal agent, Michael McSwain, who led the investigation underlying the failed federal prosecution. Aleynikov's lawyer, Kevin Marino, accused Goldman Sachs of being behind the government's aggressive prosecution. Marino sharply criticized the Manhattan District Attorney's office for charging Aleynikov after his federal conviction had been overturned and he had already served a year in prison:  On September 27, 2012, Aleynikov pleaded not guilty to all state charges and rejected the prosecutors' plea offer of accepting a single count offense and serving no jail time. On April 5, 2013, Aleynikov lost his motion to dismiss based on double jeopardy. In rendering the decision, New York State Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel stated that Aleynikov's acquittal in federal court only precluded the federal government from retrying Aleynikov. The state of New York, as a separate sovereign, could continue pursuing charges against him. On June 20, 2014, upon reviewing the evidence, Justice Ronald Zweibel published a 71-page opinion in which the court ruled that the FBI "did not have probable cause to arrest defendant, let alone search him or his home." The arrest was "illegal", and Aleynikov's "Fourth Amendment rights were violated as a result of a mistake of law." Besides finding that he was arrested illegally without probable cause, the court excluded the majority of evidence passed by the FBI to state prosecutors, as that property was supposed to be returned to Mr. Aleynikov upon acquittal. On May 1, 2015, following a trial before a New York state jury, he was cleared of the unlawful computer-related material duplication charge but found guilty of one count of unlawfully using secret scientific material. The jury deadlocked on the third count. On July 6, 2015, Justice Daniel P. Conviser dismissed the two remaining charges finding that, as a matter of law, Aleynikov did not violate the statute, and no rational jury could convict him of those charges. In his opinion, he wrote:  The statute criminalizing unlawful use of secret scientific material was enacted in 1967 but rarely utilized. The word "tangible" had never been defined by the New York Penal Law or in any reported court decision involving that statute. The one reported decision in which the statute did receive legal scrutiny — "People v Russo" (131 Misc 2d 677 [Suffolk County Ct 1986, Copertino, J.]) — was not informative with respect to the issues here.