Would You Take A Blood Test To Rule Out Food Poisoning If Your Sandwich Was Missing A Piece Of Avocado? Or Is That Just This Goldman Code Case Juror?

You never know when you might be faced with a similarly scary situation and might want to contemplate how you'd react now.
Author:
Publish date:
Updated on

Remember last week, how the government's latest attempt to convict ex-Goldman programmer Sergey Aleynikov of stealing code from his former employer nearly ended in a mistrial because of a fight between two jurors over claims that one had somehow tampered with the other’s avocado and sandwich? Unfortunately, for Aleynikov, deliberations moved forward and he was found guilty. Fortunately for those wondering, "How does one tamper with an avocado and a sandwich?", a few more details have emerged. Apparently the mere absence of avocado set off alarms bells and it didn't end there.

The possible mistrial stemmed from a dispute between two jurors deciding Mr. Aleynikov’s fate; a female juror accused a male one of “food tampering,” in part because an avocado was missing from her sandwich. The female juror also said she took a blood test to determine whether she had been poisoned, temporarily turning the criminal proceedings into a culinary whodunit.

Mixed Verdicts in Second Trial of Aleynikov, Ex-Goldman Sachs Programmer [NYT via Matt Levine]

Earlier: When The History Books On Sergey Aleynikov Are Written, They May Include Transcripts Of A Heated Debate About An Avocado And A Sandwich

Related

News

Sergey Aleynikov Is Dancing Again

One thing that I may have mentioned here is that, before I was lured to the blogging industry by the outrageous lucre on offer, I worked at this little establishment called Goldman Sachs. One thing that I probably haven't told you, but that I've mentioned to a few friends and co-workers, is that due to some frankly inexplicable confusion, the time between my telling people "I am leaving to go work for Dealbreaker" and my being escorted out of the building by active-duty Navy SEALS was somewhat longer than you might expect (viz. several nanoseconds). One thing that I've never told anybody, so let's keep it between us, is that I made good use of the delay to download certain files to a flash drive. I won't discuss all the details, since I'm using some of those files to set up my own high-frequency insider trading fund, but I will mention that with the right codes the voice recorders in the GS elevators can be accessed remotely.* One reason I never told anyone about this before is that Goldman takes it badly when people take stuff with them on the way out, and has a tendency to react by having them imprisoned for the better part of a decade. After today, though, it looks like I'm good to go: