Ex-Goldman director Gupta awaits sentence in insider case

[No Elephants]

Class warfare: In violation of federal laws, the 1% trades in securities while having information not available to the unsuspecting general investing public, such as trustees of pension plans.

Once in a great while, someone gets prosecuted for this. And even less often, the perp actually does time in prison. Usually a much nicer prison, but still.


Most of the time, though, the perp just make an illegal bundle or prevents a huge loss for himself or herself by selling a security destined to lose value as soon as the inside info is shared with the general public.

A bank robber could not argue that his or her sentence should be reduced because, while not stealing money, they are very charitable--with money they should not have in the first place. But a Goldman Sachs director can make that argument because, well, rich people's crime is higher class crime and we are a society that has the utmost respect for those who know how to bilk, er, I mean, milk, the plutonomy.

Ex-Goldman director Gupta awaits sentence in insider case

By Basil Katz

NEW YORK | Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:18am EDT

(Reuters) - The sentencing on Wednesday of fallen Wall Street titan Rajat Gupta for insider trading could come down to whether a judge agrees that his lifetime of charity counts against sending him to prison.

The former Goldman Sachs Group Inc board member was convicted in June of leaking boardroom secrets to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, his friend and former business associate, at the height of the financial crisis.

<snip>

Gupta's lawyers have requested that he be spared prison, citing his work with groups such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on fighting disease in developing countries. Bill Gates, Microsoft Corp's co-founder, and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan are among the luminaries who have urged Rakoff to be lenient.

As one alternative to prison, the defense proposed "a less orthodox" plan in which Gupta would live and work with Rwandan government officials to help fight HIV/AIDS and malaria in rural districts, court papers said.

Federal prosecutors, however, argue that Gupta should serve eight to 10 years in prison. Gupta repeatedly flouted the law and abused his position as a corporate board member, they said.

<snip> Rakoff is considered by many defense attorneys to be less harsh in sentencing than some of his peers, but he has imposed significant prison terms in other insider-trading cases.

In 2011, for example, Rakoff sentenced technology consultant Winifred Jiau to four years in prison on similar insider-trading charges. Another judge sentenced Rajaratnam, who was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy in May 2011, to 11 years.

Gupta was found guilty of three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy. The maximum sentence is 20 years for securities fraud and five years for conspiracy.

He was cleared of divulging P&G's quarterly earnings in January 2009. He was also found not guilty of illegally telling Rajaratnam about Goldman's quarterly earnings after a March 12, 2007, board meeting.

Part of the prosecution's evidence was that within a minute of disconnecting from a September 2008 board call approving a $5 billion investment in Goldman by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Gupta called Rajaratnam. Rajaratnam then hurriedly ordered his traders to buy as much as $40 million in Goldman stock, prosecutors said.

<snip>



(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Martha Graybow and Matthew Lewis)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/24/us-goldman-gupta-sentencing-idUSBRE89N06A20121024

Um, no. He wasn't cleared of anything. A judge or jury deciding that the prosecution failed to prove guilt as to a particular count beyond any reasonable doubt whatever is not the same as a decision that the accused is not guilty. Any legal reporter should know that.

I wonder how his law firm managed to get the case before Judge Light Sentence in Securities Cases. And maybe being described that way in the media will cause the Judge to do his job?

[Enthusiast]

1. I hope we don't have another

miscarriage of justice. I got a "page not found" on the link. I get that a lot.

[No Elephants]

2. Sorry, Enthusiast. I don't know what the problem could be.

So, I don't know how to correct the problem.

I just clicked on the link in the Op and it worked for me.

In this case, though, I did quote a lot more of the story than I usually do, so I do think you got the gist.