The jury in the insider-trading trial of Galleon Group LLC co-founder Raj Rajaratnam finished deliberating for the week without reaching a verdict and is set to return Monday to resume weighing evidence.Jurors in Manhattan federal court put in a half-day today before leaving for the weekend. They submitted no notes to the judge and haven't asked to review evidence since Wednesday.
The nine women and three men have deliberated for about 29 hours since US District Judge Richard Holwell instructed them on the law on April 25. In that time, they have asked to hear about 15 wiretap recordings of Rajaratnam's telephone calls.Rajaratnam, 53, was arrested in October 2009 in the largest crackdown on hedge-fund insider trading in US history. Prosecutors said he gained US$63.8 million from tips leaked by corporate insiders and hedge-fund traders about 15 stocks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS), Intel Corp. (INTC) and Clearwire Corp.
Rajaratnam, who said he based the trades on research, is charged with five counts of conspiracy and nine counts of securities fraud. He faces as long as 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges. The trial began March 8.Jurors in other white-collar crime cases have spent more than a week weighing evidence.New York jurors deliberated into their eighth day before convicting former WorldCom Inc Chairman Bernard Ebbers of accounting fraud in 2005. Like the Rajaratnam case, that trial featured six weeks of testimony.
A deadlocked jury in Manhattan weighed the evidence for six days in 2004 before a judge declared a mistrial in the obstruction-of-justice case against former Credit Suisse First Boston banker Frank Quattrone. Quattrone's conviction at a second trial was reversed on appeal.In 2005, jurors in Alabama deliberated for 21 days before acquitting Richard Scrushy, the former chief executive officer of HealthSouth Corp, of directing a US$2.7 billion accounting fraud. (Reuters)
