Seems pretty straightforward to me: the intellectual property of the code this employee was developing lies with the company (per default).
Either he still has the code, in which case he's supposed to hand it over.
Or he deliberately destroyed it, which means destruction of company property. Deliberate? Yes, because a programmer claiming "oh didn't realize you wanted to keep the source codes!" is not going to fly very far in court.
(BTW I'm modelling this on my assumptions about how this would play in Dutch court, which can be delightfully pragmatic. So there might be some differences how this would work in the USA, such as others commented, ability to afford justice in the first place)
Either he still has the code, in which case he's supposed to hand it over.
Or he deliberately destroyed it, which means destruction of company property. Deliberate? Yes, because a programmer claiming "oh didn't realize you wanted to keep the source codes!" is not going to fly very far in court.
(BTW I'm modelling this on my assumptions about how this would play in Dutch court, which can be delightfully pragmatic. So there might be some differences how this would work in the USA, such as others commented, ability to afford justice in the first place)