Insider trader pens a tell-all
Raj Rajaratnam, the former hedge-fund manager who was slapped with a record 11-year prison sentence in 2011 for insider trading, is publishing a tellall book about his epic fall from grace.
“Uneven Justice: The Plot to Sink Galleon” will recount Rajaratnam’s rise to Wall Street prominence as the founder of Galleon Group, which at one time managed $7 billion in assets and employed about 180.
Rajaratnam will also offer his take on the four-year investigation by federal prosecutor Preet Bharara into his epic spree of crooked stock picks that landed him at least $53.8 million in illgotten gains.
The book — whose cover features Rajaratnam smiling confidently and shorn of his trademark mustache — is slated for release Dec. 14 and will span 240 pages.
The tome promises inside gossip about alleged misdeeds of former Goldman Sachs board member and fellow ex-con Rajat Gupta, according to a source familiar with the book. It will also feature the story of another ex-con tied to the insider-trading scandal, Danielle Chiesi, a former Bear Stearns hedgefund trader who allegedly flirted with company executives to get inside information, the source added.
Rajaratnam, a Sri Lankan native, also will discuss some of his specific illegal stock trades, including in shares of Goldman Sachs, Akamai and AMD, the source said.
The book will make the case that Rajaratnam was the victim of overreach and a fall guy for an industry that was looking to move past the 2008 crisis, according to an advertisement posted by the book’s distributor, Simon & Schuster. The book is being published by Post Hill Press.
The post says Rajaratnam’s case “illustrates the horrific perils of unchecked prosecutorial overreach, written by the man who experienced it firsthand.”
Rajaratnam, the post adds, “chose to go to trial rather than concede to a false narrative concocted by ambitious prosecutors looking for a scapegoat for the 2008 financial crisis.
“Meanwhile, not a single senior bank executive responsible for the financial crisis was even charged.”
Rajaratnam was convicted on 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud. He served more than seven years in prison on a sentence of 11, the longest punishment for insider trading ever ordered at the time of his sentencing.