> WHY THE HECK did he report on himself???

I mean, he deleted the files first. It's reasonable that he thought that was sufficient; given the code I've seen from some scientists, scientist != computer expert.

The innocent explanation is that he was cleaning up company property before returning it, but I expect that will play out in court.

I have done the things before. Before returning the work laptop to employer on the last day, I cleaned out all the company stuff to left my personal things (this is my only laptop with my personal stuff in it), then move them out and clean them finally.

Is this common?

I've always done this. I never leave any important business files on my local PC, for obvious reasons. But there's all sorts of personal stuff on there (mostly from Web browsing). So nuke it all before turning it in. They're going to re-image it before giving it to the next person anyway.

Yes I have always DBANed my work computer on the last day of a job. Haven't done that since SSDs so not sure it is as effective anymore.

> It's reasonable that he thought that was sufficient;

But aren't it? He surrendered his flash drive. You can't do anything with it if it is not in your possession... What do you think he was supposed to do with it???

And he had an option to not to do so, or moreover, just fly to China without a notice (remember the case of a hedge fund boy who allegedly "stole keys to the kingdom" and then warned his employer that he is leaving the company on a short notice...)

You can obviously copy files off of a usb drive before giving it back. I don’t know anything about this case, and I’m not accusing this guy of anything, but your line of argument is wrong.

The point I want to convey is that if he could've done anything with it (like copying files somewhere else,) he had no point of ever attempting to do any trickery (giving a USB stick with erased files) invariably of circumstances and technicalities.

And there is no proof so far of him doing that (otherwise it will be put in bold letter on his charge sheet.)

That's nothing less than an estoppel condition in hands of a skilled lawyer.

But you can expect that prosecutors will now be trying their best to made up, and attempting to keep him behind bars for the duration of the court proceedings.

>The point I want to convey is that if he could've done anything with it (like copying files somewhere else,) he had no point of ever attempting to do any trickery (giving a USB stick with erased files) invariably of circumstances and technicalities.

“The perfect crook would have covered his tracks better” is not persuasive. The perfect crook wouldn’t get caught. People who do bad things are just as fallible as people who don’t.

Lets go for logical inflexion here.

If he did not commit a crime, would he not do so, and this be the most normal thing he can do?

The answer is yes

Now there is no distinction in between a normal employee leaving the company and a criminal following your logic.

Every time I see people going for such argument, I almost feel my sight getting dark, but people who can shove such line of thought into a legal argument in a criminal case are found left and right in the West.

I would've liked to put much stronger terms here.

If all of the evidence the FBI has is what was in the SCMP article, then there is no way the jury is going to come to a guilty verdict.

But it is doubtful that the SCMP has squeezed information out of the FBI before the court case. Once the court case happens we will see all the evidence that the FBI has gathered, which probably demonstrates much more clearly that he is guilty. It doesn't make sense to discuss hypotheticals until we at least have the evidence.

It also doesn't make sense to fear getting convicted based on deleting some files unless he is actually convicted on this flimsy evidence. But again, this is unlikely -- if you would not convict someone based solely on this evidence, then why do you think anyone else would decide on a guilty verdict?

(Keep in mind that the information in the affidavit [1] "is intended to show merely that there is sufficient probable cause for the requested warrant" and doesn't include all of the evidence that they have.)

[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1122851/downl...

Could you please disclose your country of origin & residence.

Oh well, a suspect did something illogical, we can't prosecute. The case must be dismissed, because it wasn't a perfect crime.

Yeah, that line of thinking is absurd. He probably got nervous right before he left the company and gave them the USB after hastily trying to delete the files. In which case, the parent commenter would seem to imply that he should be let go because he got nervous after stealing things he shouldn't have access to.