Raj Rajaratnam,the billionaire investor who once ran one of the worlds largest hedge funds,the Galleon Group,was found guilty on Wednesday of fraud and conspiracy by a federal jury in Manhattan. He is the most prominent figure convicted in the US governments crackdown on insider trading on Wall Street. Rajaratnam,who was convicted on all 14 counts,could face as much as 19 and a half years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines,prosecutors said on Wednesday. He is to be sentenced on July 29. Rajaratnam,dressed in a black suit and a khaki green tie,had no expression as the verdict was read in the overflowing courtroom. His lawyer,John Dowd,said he would appeal. India's much flaunted Rajat Gupta,formerly of McKinsey and the Indian School of Business,is also an accused in the fraud - of providing insider trading information to Rajaratnam. Prosecutors had asked that Rajaratnam be placed in custody,arguing that he was a flight risk. They said that he had the means to leave the country,noting that he owned property in Sri Lanka and Singapore. Judge Richard J Holwell ordered home detention and electronic monitoring for Rajaratnam. Someone who answered the phone at Rajaratnams home and would only describe himself as a family friend expressed surprise at the verdict. Rajaratnam was confident that nothing would happen, he said About a half dozen jurors declined to comment as they left the courthouse. B J Kang,the FBI special agent who led the investigation of Rajaratnam,said he was happy for justice outside the courthouse. Preet Bharara,the US attorney for Manhattan,whose prosecutors brought the case against Rajaratnam,said,The message today is clear there are rules and there are laws,and they apply to everyone,no matter who you are or how much money you have. The US government built its case against Rajaratnam with powerful wiretap evidence. Over a nine-month stretch in 2008,federal agents secretly recorded Rajaratnams telephone conversations. For years,Rajaratnam was lionised as one of Wall Streets savviest investors. At its peak,his Galleon Group hedge fund managed more than $7 billion in assets. Investment banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley counted Galleon,which paid out roughly $300 million in trading commissions annually to brokerage firms,as one of their largest trading clients. On October 16,2009,federal agents arrested Rajaratnam at his Sutton Place apartment on Manhattans East Side. The US government placed him at the centre of a vast insider trading conspiracy,accusing him of using a corrupt network of tipsters to earn tens of millions of dollars in illegal trading profits in stocks including Google and Hilton Worldwide. The case has led to insider trading charges against 25 defendants 21 of whom have pleaded guilty including former executives at IBM,Intel and Bear Stearns. Rajaratnam fought the charges against him,insisting that he had done nothing wrong.PETER LATTMAN
