Tweet
Rajat Gupta convicted
Rajat Gupta, an Indian American business icon and former head of McKinsey & Co and member of Goldman Sachs board, has been held guilty of insider trading.
At the end of a month-long trial, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted him on Friday of three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. He was acquitted on two remaining counts of security fraud.
The jury held him guilty of leaking confidential information about Goldman to his former friend and hedge fund owner Raj Rajaratnam on three different occasions in 2008.
He was also convicted of conspiring in an insider trading scheme with Rajaratnam, who was convicted and sentenced last October to 11 years in prison and fined nearly $93 million in civil penalty.
The 63-year-old Gupta could face a sentence of many years in jail. Securities fraud in the US carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, while conspiracy carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
Sentencing is set for October 18. Gupta will remain free on bail till then. Gupta's four daughters wept as the verdict was being read, while he himself showed no visible reaction and his wife buried her head in her hands, said reports from the New York court.
An IIT Delhi alumnus Gupta, who for years was looked up to as a great Indian American role model, business success and philanthropist, had also served on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Kolkata-born Gupta, who had gone to the Harvard Business School, is a co-founder of Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.
If the day marked the downfall of one Indian American of distinction, it was a day of great success for another - Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for Southern District of New York, who has been waging a battle against insider trading, having charged 66 Wall Street traders and corporate executives since 2009.
Gupta is the most prominent of 60 of those persons who have either pleaded guilty or been convicted to date.
"Having fallen from respected insider to convicted inside trader, Gupta has now exchanged the lofty board room for the prospect of a lowly jail cell," Bharara said.
Rajat Gupta, an Indian American business icon and former head of McKinsey & Co and member of Goldman Sachs board, has been held guilty of insider trading.
At the end of a month-long trial, a federal jury in Manhattan convicted him on Friday of three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. He was acquitted on two remaining counts of security fraud.
The jury held him guilty of leaking confidential information about Goldman to his former friend and hedge fund owner Raj Rajaratnam on three different occasions in 2008.
He was also convicted of conspiring in an insider trading scheme with Rajaratnam, who was convicted and sentenced last October to 11 years in prison and fined nearly $93 million in civil penalty.
The 63-year-old Gupta could face a sentence of many years in jail. Securities fraud in the US carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, while conspiracy carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
Sentencing is set for October 18. Gupta will remain free on bail till then. Gupta's four daughters wept as the verdict was being read, while he himself showed no visible reaction and his wife buried her head in her hands, said reports from the New York court.
An IIT Delhi alumnus Gupta, who for years was looked up to as a great Indian American role model, business success and philanthropist, had also served on the boards of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Kolkata-born Gupta, who had gone to the Harvard Business School, is a co-founder of Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.
If the day marked the downfall of one Indian American of distinction, it was a day of great success for another - Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for Southern District of New York, who has been waging a battle against insider trading, having charged 66 Wall Street traders and corporate executives since 2009.
Gupta is the most prominent of 60 of those persons who have either pleaded guilty or been convicted to date.
"Having fallen from respected insider to convicted inside trader, Gupta has now exchanged the lofty board room for the prospect of a lowly jail cell," Bharara said.
