You are being ridiculous. Aleynikov definitely violated New York trade secret law. He got off the federal charge because the trading software wasn't a product for sale, it was a product for internal use. The law was poorly drafted and once that came to light it was immediately fixed.
Like Rayiner said, in layman's terms, he got off on a technicality.
The FBI and DOJ being on the wrong side of a close call in statutory interpretation isn't "patently vacuous."