Federal Judge Susan Illston has found that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison either destroyed or deep-sixed e-mail evidence that should have been turned over for discovery in a 2001 insider-trading class-action suit.

The suit, which Oracle wants quashed, claims that Ellison and other Oracle executives lied about the financial condition of the company in the second quarter of 2001, improperly booked million of dollars worth of Oracle 11i sales, and knew there were problems with the company’s forecasting models.

Ellison, who settled a similar 2005 case by giving $100 million to charity, is supposed to have sold off $900 million of his own stock before disclosing Oracle’s problems.

The suit seeks damages for people who held Oracle stock back then.

Judge Illston also found that tapes and transcripts of interviews of Ellison by the guy writing his biography were destroyed when they should have been part of the discovery.

The book, by a reporter for the Economist, Matthew Symonds, was called Softwar. Symonds destroyed the material.

The judge said she would instruct the jury to infer that the missing material, which seems to date from after the case was filed, supported the prosecution’s contentions about what Ellison knew. She denied a request for sanctions.

Both sides are now rewriting their petitions for summary judgment in light of the decision.