92 THE CARAVAN
insidestory· books
In the book, Gupta establishes his
early sense of Rajaratnam’s above-the-
rules air. He also says of that phone
call, “This was early in the Voyager
saga, and although Rajaratnam was
being evasive about providing informa-
tion, our relationship had not yet dete-
riorated to the point that he avoided my
calls.” By the end of October, “our rela-
tionship was strained, to put it mildly,”
he writes, “but Raj tried to placate me,
suggesting, as he’d planned with his
colleague, that he could make a deal
with the banks to recoup our money.”
Although he had documentary proof
of Rajaratnam’s deception by 4 July,
and of his own $10-million loss in
Voyager by 16 October, there was still
the friendly 18-minute phone call, in
which the two discussed Goldman,
Anil Kumar and his payments, and
Gupta’s potential career at KKR and
Galleon. By assigning the broad dates
of “spring 2008” and “mid-to-late
October 2008” to his discovery of the
Voyager fiasco, the book maintains
a semblance of internal consistency.
Gupta is able to freely move back and
forth in the narrative, explaining one
call as friendly, but the subsequent
ones as belaboured.
Unfortunately for Gupta, it was the
jury’s job to scrutinise his version of
events, and it did. Gupta was charged
in relation to four phone calls, on 12
March 2007, 23 September and 23
October 2008, and 29 January 2009.
The 12 individuals Gupta belittles as a
collection of “hairdressers and babysit-
ters and schoolteachers” sifted through
piles of evidence and managed to seg-
regate these calls into two types: those
that implicated Gupta beyond reason-
able doubt, and those that did not. The
23 September and 23 October calls were
of the former type.
In addition to the count established
by the 12 March call, Gupta was found
not guilty of indulging in insider trad-
ing through the 29 January call, even
though it had followed the same pat-
tern as the others. Gupta called Raja-
ratnam after a Proctor & Gamble board
meeting, in which the previous quar-
ter’s losses were discussed. Rajaratnam
shorted his shares, avoiding a loss of
half a million dollars. This time, how-
ever, Gupta was able to present a wit-
nesstotestifythathisrelationshipwith
Rajaratnam had soured by this point.
This witness was Ajit Jain, Buffet’s
right-hand man at Berkshire Hathaway,
to whom Gupta had opened up earlier
in January 2009 about his fallout with
Rajaratnam.
Gupta worries about the jury in his
book: “Would they be able to follow
the complex discussions of securities
law, trading processes, business deals
and more?” However, Sandipan Deb, a
former editor at the Financial Express
who has written a book about Gupta’s
trial, told me, “in this case, there wasn’t
much financial nitty-gritty to under-
stand, really. One didn’t have to under-
stand what financial derivatives are or
anything. It was a pretty simple case,
of giving you information that others
are not privy to, so that you can make a
quick buck before others come to know
of it.” In fact, the foreman of the jury
said at the time, “We looked at him and
what he had done professionally. We
were hoping he would walk out of this
courthouse.” However, “on the counts
we convicted, we felt that there was
enough circumstantial evidence that
any reasonable person could make that
connection.”
The judge in Gupta’s trial was Jed
Rakoff, reputed to be one of the fairest
in the second circuit. He disallowed
the use of the words “malaria,” “tuber-
culosis” and “AIDS” in court, and alsobarredportionsofthediaryofGupta’s
financial advisor that referenced his
intention to give away 80 percent of his
wealth to charity. Rakoff instructed the
jury not to be swayed by Gupta’s repu-
tation, arguing that the history of the
world was filled with good men who
did bad things. However, once the jury
pronounced its verdict, he was permit-
ted to take into account that reputation
during sentencing. Over four hundred
people—ranging from Bill Clinton and
the former United Nations secretary
general Kofi Annan to Gupta’s barber,
domestic help and personal trainer—
wrote to the judge, attesting to Gupta’s
character. Rakoff observed during the
sentencing, “The court can say without
exaggeration that it has never encoun-
tered a defendant whose prior history
suggests such an extraordinary devo-
tion, not only to humanity writ large,
but also to individual human beings in
their times of need.”
“No one who has met Gupta would
think he is capable of this,” Deb told
me. “When you meet him, he just comes
across as a humble guy. If you talk to
anybody who knew him—his friends,
associates—many of them would still
be in denial. Even I couldn’t believe it,
before I started researching it.”
Indeed, Gupta seems to embody hu-
mility and authenticity. In interviews,
he speaks in a measured tone and often
delivers thoughtful, self-effacing an-Anil Kumar accepted a plea bargain to testify against Gupta, a long-time friend and colleague.mike segar / reuters