NEW YORK-A lawyer for a Sri Lankan-born onetime billionaire serving 11 years for insider trading asked a federal appeals court yesterday to toss out the bulk of the evidence in his case and reverse his conviction. The attorney, Patricia Millett, asked the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to decide that the government acted improperly to persuade a judge in March 2008 to permit a wiretap to be placed on Raj Rajaratnam's cellphone.
The wiretap was used to record 2,200 private conversations by the founder of the Galleon group of 14 hedge funds as he spoke with at least 130 of his colleagues, employees, friends and family. Millett said the government at Rajaratnam's trial introduced 45 wiretap recordings into evidence, along with extensive evidence derived from the recordings.
During its summation, the government repeatedly stressed to the jury that the wiretaps were the "core evidence in this case" for "all the crimes" charged, she noted in court papers before the arguments.
AP
