A U.S. judge closed to the public parts of testimony in the trial of a former computer programmer accused of stealing secret high-frequency trading code from Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said from the bench on Thursday that she was granting a government application to seal parts of testimony of three witnesses, all of them employees at Wall Street’s most influential bank.

Prosecutors allege that programmer Sergey Aleynikov stole critical parts of Goldman’s top-secret high-frequency trading program in June 2009 before going to a new job with Teza Technologies LLC, a speed-trading start-up firm in Chicago.

The government gave notice to the Manhattan federal court judge weeks ago that it would seek to close the courtroom to the public and journalists for portions of testimony, saying that there were privacy issues at stake for Goldman.

At least one news organization and one member of the public objected to any part of the trial being closed.

Cote said in court that “nothing had been done off the record or in secret yet” in the trial that is expected to last about three weeks. She said that Aleynikov’s lawyers and the media had been given enough notice to raise any objections.

A lawyers for Aleynikov, 40, said in Tuesday’s opening arguments that the programmer did not harm and could not have harmed Goldman Sachs. Aleynikov has been free on bail since his July 2009 arrest.

The case is USA v Aleynikov, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 10-96.