Rajat Gupta seeks re-trial over insider trading case

8220;Gupta himself was not heard on the wiretaps,which are instead conversations between convicted Galleon Group manager Raj Rajaratnam and other employees at the hedge fund. Those wiretaps should never have been admitted,Waxman told a three-judge panel.

8220;The prosecution8217;s case rested exclusively on circumstantial evidence,and predominantly on wiretap statements 8211; not of Gupta,but of Raj Rajaratnam,a highly unreliable declarant,speaking with other people with no connection to Gupta,8221; Seth Waxman and Gary Naftalis,Gupta8217;s lawyers said in a brief to the appeals court.

8220;The court8217;s decidedly asymmetrical interpretation of the rules of evidence left the jury with a distorted picture in which Gupta was accused by the self-serving hearsay of a known fabulist beyond Gupta8217;s powers to cross-examine,but was unable to explain to the jury that he had neither the motive nor the inclination to benefit that person,8221; Waxman said.

Gupta,64,in October last year,was handed down a two-year prison term by US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff,who also ordered him to pay a USD 5 million fine.

Waxman and Naftalis argued that the conversation and a second wiretapped call were admitted erroneously under the theory that it furthered the insider-trading conspiracy

because prosecutors didn8217;t allege Lau was a member of the Rajaratnam-Gupta conspiracy and instead called it 8220;inadmissible braggadocio8221;.