Gupta, Rajaratnam had animosity- Defence lawyer
The defence team of Goldman Sachs Group’s Indian American director Rajat Gupta, accused of insider trading, is seeking material to show “animosity” between Gupta and convicted hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam.
Gupta’s poor relationship with Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group co-founder convicted of profiting from his tips, would be a “key defence theme”, one of Gupta’s lawyers said.
In a letter to US District Judge Jed Rakoff Thursday, lawyer David Frankel said an unnamed “key government witness” discussed the “animosity between the two men” in a July 2010 interview with investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Bureau of Investigation.in a hearing in January before Rakoff, who will preside over Gupta’s criminal trial in May,
prosecutors said Claes Dahlback, a Goldman Sachs director who is a former chief executive officer of Sweden’s Investor AB, spoke to Gupta after Rajaratnam’s October 2009 arrest. “Dahlback asked Gupta if Gupta knew Rajaratnam,” Rakoff said, quoting a memo summarising Dahlback’s June interview with the government.
“Gupta responded that ‘Rajaratnam was a lost said, was bad Prosecutors motivated money summarising man’. Gupta with said to pass Rajaratnam,” the in further January witness tips to stated Rajaratnam report. that Rakoff Gupta Gupta by with Defence friendship the hedge-fund lawyers and by may manager. investments try to counter he held the government’s between the two case men. by showing friction Blankfein, In November, Goldman Rakoff Sachs’s ruled CEO, that Lloyd could be questioned before Gupta’s criminal trial begins. Rakoff said depositions of other Goldman Sachs officers must be conducted after the trial. In his deposition in the SEC case, Blankfein said that representatives of the US Attorney’s Office, the SEC and FBI had prepared him, in two sessions, for his testimony.
Reed Brodsky, one of the federal prosecutors in Gupta’s criminal case, asked three-fourths of the questions in the sessions, Frankel said.
Gupta’s lawyers have asked Rakoff to allow them to conduct additional questioning of Blankfein and production of the documents shown to him by prosecutors.
In a separate court filing, the SEC said that Gupta’s lawyers shouldn’t be allowed to conduct additional questioning of Blankfein.
(IANS)