Rajat Gupta sentenced to 2 years in jail for insider trading

Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta was today sentenced to two years in prison and fined USD 5 million by a US judge, months after the Indian-American Wall Street titan was found guilty of leaking boardroom secrets to a hedge fund manager in the largest insider trading case in the country's history.

Gupta, 63, was handed down a two-year prison term by US District Court Judge Jed Rakoff, who also ordered him to pay a USD 5 million fine.

Gupta, reading from a statement, said: "The last 18 months have been the most challenging period of my life since I lost my parents as a teenager."

"I regret terribly the impact of this matter on my family, my friends and the institutions that are dear to me. I've lost my reputation I built for a lifetime. The verdict was devastating," he said.

"His conduct has forever tarnished a once-sterling reputation that took years to cultivate," Manhattan's top federal attorney India-born Preet Bharara said.

Gupta was found guilty by a federal court in Manhattan on four counts, out of six on June 15 after a three-week trial for passing boardroom secrets to the now imprisoned billionaire hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam at the height of the global financial crisis.

The Prosecution had sought a prison term of 8-10 years for Gupta who was convicted in a closely followed trial on three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy.

The sentencing of India Inc's Wall Street poster boy by US District Judge Jed Rakoff comes exactly a year after Bharara filed insider trading charges against the former McKinsey head.

Gupta, the most high profile Wall Street executive to be convicted in the government's crackdown on insider trading, had sought leniency from the judge, citing his otherwise unblemished career and philanthropic works.

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