Via the BBC, this report on the Rajaratnam insider trading case in the Southern District of New York. The jury’s repeated reviews of wiretap evidence suggest, in our view, that the wiretap evidence was critical.
US hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam has been found guilty of making tens of millions of dollars from insider trading.
The unanimous verdict brings to an end a eight-week trial which is part of what prosecutors call the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history.
Central to the prosecution’s evidence were tapped phone calls between Rajaratnam and corporate insiders. Rajaratnam faces between 15-and-a-half and 19-and-a-half years in jail. He will be released on bail with an electronic tag until the sentencing date of 29 July, although prosecutors had asked for him to be kept in custody in the meantime.
Rajaratnam was found guilty on all of the 14 charges he faced, including five counts of conspiracy and nine of securities fraud. The jury decision was postponed for several days after one juror fell ill and had to be replaced, forcing the jury to restart their deliberations from the beginning.
Jurors went back to the courtroom repeatedly during their deliberations to listen to sections of the 45 tapes of wire-tapped telephone calls.
Aggressive trading
Prosecutors argued Rajaratnam made as much as $63.8m (£39m) in illegal profits from 2003 to March 2009 by trading on tips from a network of highly-placed corporate insiders. The companies traded included Google, Intel and Hilton Hotels, the prosecution said. In his final closing arguments, Assistant US Attorney Jonathan Streeter said the Rajaratnam defence team wanted the jury to defy logic and common sense and ignore the evidence provided by dozens of recorded phone calls of illegal trading tips.
