Former Goldman Rajat Gupta Released From Prison

New York: Indian-American businessman Rajat Gupta completed his two-year jail term on March 11 after he was convicted in 2012 of passing confidential boardroom information to his one-time friend and business associate Raj Rajaratnam. Prior to his arrest, he had served as a director for American multinational investment banking firm, Goldman Sachs.

The 67-year-old philanthropist was officially released two days before his sentence was supposed to end as that fell on a Sunday. The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals last month agreed to rehear an appeal to throw out the insider-trading conviction against him. Apart from the two-year prison term, he was fined $5 million and the Securities and Exchange Commission also slapped a $13.9 million penalty against him. Gupta started his prison term in 2014 at FMC DEVENS, an administrative security federal medical centre with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Ayer, Massachusetts. On the other hand, Rajaratnam is serving an 11-year sentence for insider trading.

Ever since his conviction in June 2012, Gupta filed several appeals, including to the US Supreme Court, to overturn his conviction and prison term but the courts rejected his arguments and affirmed his sentence. However, it was only early last month, just weeks before his prison term was to end, that he had some legal respite when the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to rehear an appeal.

Gupta completed the last two months of his prison term at his home in Manhattan, after being released on January 5 from the Devens correctional facility.