I'd like to disagree as someone who knew Ross during my time at Berkeley. He absolutely is intelligent and thoughtful enough to know what he was doing -- including the consequences.

Berkeley's IRB is similarly illed -- resulting, a lot of trust (i.e. empathy) is placed that the lead will not do anything as obviously unethical as this. This is not the mistake that someone as intelligent as Ross makes, this was a conscious decision that backfired.