54-year-old hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam just received an 11 year prison sentence for insider trading.
According to NY AP; “Raj left federal court in Manhattan on Thursday after U.S. District Judge Richard J. Holwell announced a sentence that was four years below a Probation Department recommendation and well short of the government’s request that the Galleon Group founder serve as much as 24½ years.
“Given the role Mr. Rajaratnam played in this scheme, many people could criticize the sentence as being too lenient,” said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor who heads the white-collar defense group at the firm McCarter & English.
“In this environment where there’s a palpable public antipathy to Wall Street, many people expected a sentence that was going to be closer to what prosecutors were seeking than what the defense was asking for,” he added.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Reed Brodsky told Holwell that Rajaratnam made up to $75 million between 2003 and 2009 at his Galleon Group of funds by working a network of friends, former classmates and other tipsters at various companies and investment firms to get lucrative secrets about public companies including Google, IBM, Hilton Hotels and Goldman Sachs before they were announced publicly.”
Some people will never be satisfied. Raj is worth several billionaire dollars, but now he won’t be able to spend it. Smh
