Thaindian News

New York, April 22 (IANS) Lawyers of Raj Rajaratnam have dubbed the testimony of former Intel treasury official Rajiv Goel, who pleaded guilty to passing tips to the hedge fund tycoon, as “bizarre”.

Closing arguments in the biggest insider trading trial in US history Thursday defence attorney John Dowd accused the government of using “worthless” testimony from witnesses to railroad Sri Lankan-born Galleon Group founder Rajaratnam.

Turning to Goel’s testimony that he gave inside information to Rajaratnam about his company’s quarterly earnings and a $1billion investment, he said:

“Mr Goel ‘pointed the finger at Raj so he could get a free pass on crimes that had nothing to do with Raj.’”

“Mr Goel testified he didn’t pay taxes on money he kept in offshore bank accounts,” Dowd said. “If you gave Rajiv Goel $5, would you trust him to pay it back? If the answer is no, you cannot convict Raj.”

Accusing the prosecution of mischaracterising witnesses’ testimony to mislead the jury by giving it “a snippet” of the full story, he said the prosecution had failed to prove Rajaratnam had broken insider-trading laws.

Asserting that the alleged insider tips Rajaratnam got were common knowledge, Dowd, presented the court with dozens of e-mails, trading records and excerpts from trial testimony to argue that his client had made trades based on public reports, not on insider tip-offs.

Prosecutors, who allege Rajaratnam made $68 million off illegal inside trades from 2003 to March 2009 by trading on tips from a network of highly-placed corporate insiders, including at least three Indian Americans, presented 40 wiretap recordings throughout the trial.

Prosecutor Reed Brodsky told jurors Wednesday that “cheating became a business model” at Galleon.

Rajaratnam denies 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy. He faces 25 years in prison if found guilty.