Insider-Trading Suspects Smash Hard Drive Evidence

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."'"

Destruction of evidence

[betterunixthanunix]

I have heard of people getting hit with destruction of evidence charges for engaging in this sort of behavior...

White collar...

[mfh]

Red sleeves.

Re:Destruction of evidence

[commodore6502]

Yep. To quote the article: "When people frantically begin shredding sensitive documents and deleting computer files and smashing flash drives and chasing garbage trucks at 2 a.m. ... it is not because they have been operating legitimately," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Ahhh the old "if you are innocent, then you shouldn't have a right to privacy" argument.
Obviously I disagree.
I'd destroy my hard drive too if I got word the government was coming. They don't need to know that I donated to wikileaks and other projects.

Re:Encryption

[Jaysyn]

So? I'd gladly take a misdemeanor if it meant they had no evidence that a crime was committed.

Another poorly thought-out law written by stupid assholes that don't understand the first fucking thing about computers.

Re:Hmm...

[currently_awake]

If you don't see the body it's not dead. It's physically possible to search the dump and find those drives. The compressor in the truck isn't strong enough to destroy the drive so it should still be readable. It would be very labour intensive but in the current (US) economy that isn't an issue.

Re:Destruction of evidence

[skuzzlebutt]

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?

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?

criminal mastermind

[Jodka]

"...threw the s—t in the back of like random garbage trucks, different garbage trucks four different garbage trucks."

"Mr. Longueuil's version of that night's events was recorded later, during a December meeting with former colleague..."

After thoroughly eradicating all trace of evidence, he then told someone else what he had done. Brilliant.

That doesn't sound real

[roc97007]

Does anyone else think that the quote sounds like one of those fake quotes you see in mail hoaxes? For instance, why would he say "I put this stuff inside my black North Face jacket", which adds nothing to the story but is something a hoaxer would put in if he saw photos of Longueuil wearing North Face products. Besides, maybe the guy wasn't a Rhodes Scholar, but I have a hard time believing the managing director of a capital management firm speaks like a valley girl.

I'm not saying he's innocent, just that this news item doesn't look right.

Re:White collar criminals ARE smarter

[wierd_w]

at the risk of suffering 5000 degree flamewar posts...

There *IS* some (small) evidence that being a rapist is at least partially genetically based. (rather, a predisposition to being a rapist that is.)

In such cases, I would say the impulse is mother nature's fault. The decision to act, is the purpetrator's.

(Much like mother nature is at fault for our desire to eat sweet things, but our reaching into the cookie jar when we know better is OUR fault.)

Now, that aside-- White collar criminals who destroy thousands of people's lives so they can live in obscene luxury deserve not only to be devested of said luxuries, but to be treated like the criminals they are. That does not mean I advocate prison rape or the like-- even serial killers shouldnt be subjected to cruel and unusual punishments or conditions in the penal system-- it just means that they should be put away and prevented from doing any further harm.

Re:White collar criminals ARE smarter

[Solandri]

The distinction (problem) isn't street thug vs. white collar. It's with the victims. With a street thug, there's one victim, one person bearing all of the injury. It's really easy to look at that one person, feel the emotional weight of the injury, and decide the perpetrator needs to be punished.. With white collar crime, the injury is distributed over dozens, hundreds, sometimes millions of victims. So even though the sum total of the injury may be much greater than the sum total of the injury caused by the street thug, there is little to no emotional impact. People still see it as "well, that spam only cost me 5 seconds of my life, so no big deal." So the punishments tend to be much less severe.

Guess what? 5 seconds per spam * 10 spams which get past the filters * 100 million recipients works out to 158 man-years of time lost. The sum total of the injury caused by this spammer is actually greater than killing a person. It's just that the injury is distributed instead of concentrated on one place. The average lost productivity to society is the same.

Re:Destruction of evidence

[spun]

You can't really expect a short-bus-riding window licker to use a five syllable word correctly.