samarth-agrawal-soc-gen
Samarth Agrawal was sentenced to three years for stealing SocGen's proprietary high frequency trading algorithms yesterday, making him the first person to be convicted of stealing high frequency code.
The government calculated the loss of the code to cost SocGen $9.58 million, and requested that he be jailed for 63 to 78 months.
But Agrawal's character convinced the judge that he deserved less.
The character references that worked Agrawal's favor, according to Courthouse News:

  • He prays to a picture of his mother and grandfather in his cell and "feels remorse on a level that I have never known."
  • Agrawal spoke about the pain he caused his parents
  • He said he felt "shame" that he acted alone, under nobody's supervision.
  • "What do you do when there is no light? When there is complete darkness? That's your character," Agrawal said.

He's sentenced to spend three years in jail.
Tower Research Capital, where Agrawal was headed, said they couldn't even use the code.