Rajat Gupta: End of Story

Rajat Gupta was convicted of insider trading and faces up to 25 years in prison. He is going to appeal the verdict. This is a collation of some of the best stories on the case

Abhishek Raghunath
Updated: Jun 19, 2012 12:13:20 PM UTC
RajatG360

Some of the more interesting news items on Rajat Gupta’s conviction. Almost all of them talk about him living the American Dream and how he was led astray by greed.

Wall Street Journal’s piece is by far one of the most comprehensive pieces on the verdict.

The 12-member jury, sitting in a New York federal court just blocks from Wall Street, handed up a quick verdict after a four-week trial. Janeat Brown, a 32-year-old fourth-grade teacher who was juror No. 5, said that in the first few hours of deliberations, 11 of 12 jurors believed Mr. Gupta was guilty.

By contrast, jurors deliberated 12 days last year before convicting hedge-fund titan Raj Rajaratnam, who now is serving an 11-year prison term. Some jurors shed tears after the verdict was read, as Mr. Gupta's daughters, who had sat in the front row throughout the trial, sobbed and hugged one another.

"We wanted him to walk, go home to his family, live a very prosperous life," said juror Ronnie Sesso, a 53-year-old youth advocate in New York. "I struggled with everything…. But looking at the evidence made it clear."

Washington Post makes a good attempt as well, complete with a slideshow of other major white-collar crimes in US history.

Gupta — born in India, educated at Harvard and well-respected on Wall Street — was “a wonderful example of the American Dream,” Lebkowski said. “I wanted to believe the allegations weren’t true.” But on the counts the jury found Gupta guilty, “the evidence was overwhelming,” he added.

This is the audiofile of the wiretrap: An 18-minute conversation between Gupta and Raj Rajratnam.

Anant Rangaswami, of FirstPost tries to be all smart-alecky about it buts ends up falling flat on his face saying:

Rajat Gupta is no criminal, he’s just an Indian. Many thousands of kilometres away, in India, many of us are bemused by the accusations and the conviction. A man goes to jail because he shared information with a friend? By that yardstick, half of India would be in jail.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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