Rajat Gupta seeks reversal of conviction for insider trading
LAWYERS for former Goldman Sachs Group board member Rajat Gupta are urging a federal appeals court to reverse his insider trading conviction, arguing that a judge shouldn’t have allowed wiretaps to be heard at trial.
In a brief filed Friday at the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, Gupta’s lawyers argued wiretaps of now-imprisoned hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam amounted to “hearsay statements” and should not have been presented to the jury.
“Without a proper basis for admission, these untestable, unreliable hearsay statements had no place in a criminal trial, and their admission alone compels reversal,” Gupta’s lawyers wrote.
A federal jury convicted Gupta, 64, in June of leaking Goldman boardroom secrets to Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge fund manager at the centre of probe into insider trading. Lawyers for Rajaratnam had no immediate comment.