Insider-Trading Suspects Smash Hard Drive Evidence 364
An anonymous reader writes "We all know Slashdotters love debating the best way to wipe a hard drive clean. Looks like tech-savvy Wall Street Hedge Fund managers also know the best way to do it. From the WSJ article: 'Mr. Longueuil's version of that night's events was recorded later, during a December meeting with former colleague Mr. Freeman, who by then was cooperating with the government and recording conversations, according to the U.S. complaint. "F—in' pulled the external drives apart," Mr. Longueuil told Mr. Freeman during their meeting, according to the criminal complaint. "Put 'em into four separate little baggies, and then at 2 a.m. 2 a.m. on a Friday night, I put this stuff inside my black North Face jacket, and leave the apartment and I go on like a twenty block walk around the city and try to find a, a garbage truck and threw the s—t in the back of like random garbage trucks, different garbage trucks four different garbage trucks."'"
Moral of the Story (Score:5, Informative)
At the small town bars I used to hang out in we had a saying, "Loose lips get hit."
It would appear that the hammer of justice follows a similar rule of thumb.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
He probably did. They nuked things like their Crackberry messaging traffic amongst other things at his insistence.
Re:admission of guilt? (Score:5, Informative)
If they have a recording of you describing how you ripped apart and surreptitiously disposed of your HDD after you heard that the feds were on your trail, those charges are going to be very hard to dodge...
Merely destroying your hard drive, out of caution or paranoia, and then learning later that the feds would really have liked to have a look through it, is one thing; but if you are caught on tape describing why you destroyed it, game over, man.
Re:White collar criminals ARE smarter (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Destruction of evidence (Score:3, Informative)
Re:admission of guilt? (Score:5, Informative)
if they prove deliberate destruction of evidence, doesn't that constitute admission of guilt? or some other loss-by-default?
No, but it does allow the prosecutor to give the jury instructions that they may make a adverse inference[1] as to the contents of the destroyed relevant evidence from the fact that the defendant knowingly (sometimes even negligently) destroyed it. Essentially, they are telling the jury that they can infer that the evidence would weaken the defendant's case from the fact that he willfully destroyed it.[2] The jury is not required to make such an inference but it may -- as contrasted from the fact that prosecutors are forbidden from trying to make adverse inferences from a refusal to testify based on 5A grounds, such jury instructions would be illegal and the whole conviction overturned.
This is a very onerous instruction and so is reserved for cases in which it was shown that the destruction was knowing or negligent but it's necessary in order for the discovery system to work. In the absence of a adverse inference rule, litigants would have a very strong incentive to preemptively destroy any incriminating evidence as soon as they became aware of an investigation or a lawsuit. In cases against corporations in which internal emails/documents play a pivotal role in proving that the behavior was part of a pattern/policy of the company (and not merely a rogue employee) this would be fatal to the plaintiff/State. The same logic applies in cases against the State[3] where they refuse to disclose evidence that might be favorable to the defendant.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_inference [wikipedia.org]
[2] http://vegaslitigator.com/blog/?cat=50 [vegaslitigator.com] (discussing the Nevada statute, not the Federal one, but many parallels and the same basic concepts exist).
[3] http://legalholds.typepad.com/legalholds/2009/04/negligent-destruction-of-evidence-is-sufficient-to-support-an-adverse-inference-instruction-although.html [typepad.com] An interesting case in which police destruction of evidence helps to get defendants off the hook because they allege that the destroyed evidence would undermine the State's case. IOW, the adverse-inference doctrine cuts both for and against the State. The defendants did eventually convince the court that the radio communications were relevant.
Re:Destruction of evidence (Score:2, Informative)
Never mind. It wouldn't make any difference, because some people refuse to believe the US is guilty of human rights violations (including extermination camps during the 1940s). No point wasting my breath.
Wow! Just wow! They were called Internment Camps, not Extermination Camps. And while it was bad that we forced Japanese Americans into these camps, please do not try to compare them to what Nazi Germany was doing during that same time period. These families were given homes, allowed to move about freely within the camp, they were fed well, their kids went to school, they had activities and entertainment, and were released when it was all said and done.
Again, I'm not saying it was a good thing, but let's not get carried away and call them Extermination camps.
Wow!
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Depends on whether they actually cracked the drives open and pulled the platters. The article is unfortunately ambiguous on this point; it just refers to them "tearing apart external drives" which may well be them simply pulling the drive from its enclosure.
The article is not ambiguous. Skip to the bottom to see a section of the US attorney's complaint.
Freeman then remarked, "I don't see how you get rid of this shit," to which LONGUEIL explained, "Oh, it's easy. You take two pairs of pliers, and then you rip it open . . . and then, it's just a piece of NAND."
More...
"Fuckin' pulled the external drives apart. Destroyed the platter..."
That's pretty unambiguous.
Re:Destruction of evidence (Score:4, Informative)
True, but, were I in their shoes, I'd have to ask myself:
1. Does acting strangely (i.e., throwing my hard drives in random garbage trucks) prove my guilt in the case?
I worked in electronic discovery for a time which deals with ferreting out electronic information during trials. Doing something in the manner you're pondering would likely get you into a lot more trouble than you're counting on.
During your trial the judge the judge would likely find efforts to destroy to be in bad faith and give the jury an instruction to make an adverse inference [wikipedia.org] about the evidence you destroyed. Basically this means that whatever bad facts the prosecutor claims were on the hard drive (with a modicum of fact and or educated guessing backing it up), the jury would assume those bad things were found to be true during trial. there is a small chance that the judge might invoke a default ruling (i.e. you're guilty).
2. If there is evidence on those hard drives that probably would prove my guilt, which is the lesser sentence: obstruction or whatever I'll get charged with if they find smokinggun.jpg on those drives?
You would likely be found guilty of both the original charges (whatever they were) and destruction of evidence and whatever else the prosecutor can come up with (which is likely to be lengthy). In general it is a bad idea to try to outsmart the court or play fast and loose with evidence. Very few things will tick off a judge faster or more violently than the destruction of evidence in bad faith (i.e. you meant to destroy or hide evidence to avoid getting caught).