Prosecutors Doing All They Can To Get Local Man Acquitted

The government is having trouble getting it together v. Sergey Aleynikov.

Author:
Jon Shazar
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
Apr 16, 2015

The second-happiest day of Sergey Aleynikov's life, now in danger of becoming only the third or fourth.

Given, you know, the whole, sad history of the People v. Sergey Aleynikov, it should perhaps surprise no one that his second trial on criminal charges of crossing Goldman Sachs has become a total shambles. One can keep track in The New York Times’ headlines alone: The “new stumble” of two weeks ago—i.e., prosecutors not being ready for trial on the first day of said trial—has become “new stumbles.” The latest stumble is that prosecutors forgot that they told Aleynikov’s lawyers that they weren’t going to call any expert witnesses in a cybersecurity case, and then yesterday tried to call an expert witness. It didn’t happen.

Daniel Holmes, the assistant district attorney leading the prosecution, said, “Mr. Lynch is a critical witness to the people because no new examination can be done on the Aleynikov home computers.” Mr. Holmes, in his letter, added that “Mr. Lynch alone can provide testimony about what he observed on these devices….”
“I think this is the people’s responsibility, and I don’t understand why you didn’t just say long ago, ‘I’m presenting Mr. Lynch. He’s an expert witness,’” the judge said.

What with this latest setback following the previous setbacks—like, you know, the one where the judge threw out most of the prosecution’s evidence that helped (wrongly) convict Aleynikov in his federal trial—one might think that the Manhattan D.A.’s office would be ready to wave the white flag and let Sergey go, his having served a year in jail and had his life ruined for what increasingly looks like it isn’t a crime. But what can we say? Cyrus Vance & co. are just gluttons for punishment.