Rajaratnam sentenced to 11 years
Raj Rajaratnam, a self-made hedge fund tycoon convicted in the
biggest Wall Street trading scandal in a generation, was ordered on
Thursday to serve 11 years in prison, one of the longest sentences on
record in an insider-trading case but less than prosecutors had sought.
Raj Rajaratnam |
Prosecutors had asked U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell in
Manhattan to impose a sentence of at least 19-1/2 years on the Galleon
Group founder,
the central figure in a sweeping criminal case that touched some of
America’s top companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc GS.N, Intel
Corp INTC.O , IBM IBM.N and the elite McKinsey & Co consultancy.
Defense lawyers had argued that Rajaratnam deserved a much shorter
prison term, citing unspecified health problems and arguing that the
government was pushing for a punishment more appropriate to a violent
criminal.
Prosecutors have called Rajaratnam, 54, the “modern face” of insider
trading, putting him in a dubious pantheon of Wall Street power players
such as takeover specialist Ivan Boesky and junk bond financier Michael
Milken, principal figures in a mid-1980s insider-trading case. Both men
served about two years in prison. Rajaratnam’s legal battle will go on,
as he appeals his conviction on 14 criminal charges by a New York jury
in May. The appeal targets the legality of the FBI wiretaps used to gain
evidence that he improperly pumped corporate insiders for confidential
data. Jurors heard dozens of the wiretap recordings during the two-month
trial. REUTERS
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