Bloomberg opines: Rajat Gupta, the former McKinsey & Co.
chief and pal of imprisoned inside trader Raj Rajaratnam, has one goal after
being convicted last month of securities fraud: To convince federal Judge Jed
Rakoff that he deserves minimal jail time.
There is a compelling public interest, after all, in keeping
white-collar criminals on the street. The financial markets need liquidity, as
any summer intern at a Washington lobbying firm can tell you, and we would be
facing dark days if we lost our best talent at leaking confidential
information. What good is a tipster in a place where high-frequency trading
means swapping cigarettes for a batch of washed and folded laundry?
I don’t mean to suggest that his lawyers and throng of big-
name business friends aren’t already doing a serviceable job of portraying
Gupta as an honorable man who doesn’t belong in jail. Gupta’s lawyer, Gary P.
Naftalis, pushed so hard to be allowed to tell the jurors about Gupta’s
philanthropy that Rakoff had to offer a reminder: Even Mother Teresa would be
judged on the evidence -- but presumably not her saintliness -- if charged with
robbing a bank…
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