MOSCOW, February 22 - RAPSI. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has sided with the prosecutors in their motion to extend the period for requesting a rehearing of the judgment acquitting Russian-born programmer Sergey Aleynikov of stealing programming code from Goldman Sachs.

Aleinikov emigrated from Russia in 1990 and now is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

The attorney's office has requested a 30-day extension for a rehearing after the court issues its Opinion.

The U.S. District Court for Southern District of New York sentenced Aleynikov to eight years and one month in prison on March 18. He was charged with misappropriating GS trading system programming code.

An appeals court acquitted him on the appeal on February 17.

The court only read out the operative section of the judgement without disclosing the motives. However, it was reported that according to Aleynikov's defense the information found in his possession was not used by GS for commercial purposes either in the United States or abroad.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Aleynikov worked at GS as a programmer for over two years. He was responsible for developing computer programs and supporting the bank's trading system. Originally, the system was owned by the Hull Trading Company, but Goldman Sachs acquired the company for $500 million in 1999.

Aleinikov moved to Teza Technologies in July 2009. A month earlier, he allegedly downloaded 3,600 files with the code to an outside server. Aleynikov was arrested in August 2011 in the Newark airport.