The facts are indisputable:  the former Goldman Sachs computer programmer took source code from the the firm's high-frequency trading platform when he left last year to join a start-up.  The jury now is deliberating whether to convict him for doing so.  If convicted on the charge of theft of trade secrets, Mr. Aleynikov faces up to 10 years in prison.

The 2-week trial has highlighted the complex world of high-frequency trading, an increasingly important source of profits for Wall Street firms. 

    Government's Closing Arguments.   "Let’s move fast," assistant U.S. attorney Rebecca Rohr began, quoting the subject line of an e-mail sent to Mr. Aleynikov by his future boss at Teza Technologies, a fledgling high-frequency trading firm, just before he left Goldman.  This e-mail, Ms. Rohr said, showed the pressure Mr. Aleynikov was under to quickly develop a trading platform at his new firm.

"The defendant chose to become a thief.  A high-tech thief, but a thief nonetheless," referring to the fact that Mr. Aleynikov's stole Goldman’s intellectual property to create code at Teza.  She described how Mr. Aleynikov penetrated Goldman’s security protections by uploading the code to a server in Germany.  "He had to get the jewels out of the safe."  Mr. Aleynikov, she pointed out, then deleted files that would’ve shown what he had done.  "Like any good thief, he covered his tracks, brushing away the digital footprints."

The government spent considerable time emphasizing the proprietary nature of Goldman’s code, presumably to show the jury how confidential and valuable it was.  Ms. Rohr tossed out some mind-numbing jargon, like "theoretical value libraries" and "CGP gateways."  She also quoted a Goldman executive’s trial testimony about its code: "We guarded it closely at the algorithm, connectivity and infrastructure level."

    Defense's Closing Arguments.  "Let’s move fast." It’s a great phrase, said Kevin Marino, Mr. Aleynikov’s lawyer, and "that’s exactly what the government did" in arresting him.  Kevin Marino,  began.  He then called the case "bogus" and a "silly prosecution," saying the case had no business being in criminal court and was more appropriate for a civil proceeding. 

Why?  Because it was absurd to think that the code Mr. Aleynikov took from Goldman could harm the bank.  Mr. Marino said his client was merely trying to take open-source code that wasn’t proprietary to Goldman.  He noted that his client concealed his downloads because he knew that he was violating the firm’s confidentiality policy.

Mr. Marino focused intently on the idea that his client didn’t take the code to either benefit his new employer or harm Goldman, noting that Teza didn't need Goldman’s code to build its trading platform.  He showed this by highlighting the testimony of Mikhail "Misha" Malyshev, the founder of Teza and a former senior exec at hedge fund giant Citadel.  The high-frequency trading operation at Citadel, which Mr. Malyshev ran, generated more than $1 billion in revenue, dwarfing the $300 million in revenue Goldman made last year in the same business.  It was noted during the trial that Citadel had paid Mr. Malyshev $75 million in 2008, perhaps the most jaw-dropping fact to emerge at trial.

The defendant’s lawyer also reminded the jury that Mr. Malyshev testified that even if Goldman’s code were given to him for free, he wouldn’t have used it.  The notion that "Goldman Sachs was the New York Yankees of high-frequency trading ain’t necessarily so," said Mr. Marino.  Mr. Aleynikov "took stuff that belonged to Goldman and that’s not good."  No, "That’s bad.  But did he take it with the intent to harm Goldman Sachs?"

The jury now decides.  [NYT Dealbook, 12/9]