Rajat Gupta: Harassed After Objecting To Rakoff Rulings

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I’ve copy-pasted the following posts from the blog of Benula Bensam, the 24 year old Indian-born American and law student, who sent Judge Rakoff letters discussing the basis for his rulings on the evidence in the Gupta case. Rakoff reprimanded her and told her to stop.  When Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein showed up in court to testify for the prosecution, she was asked to leave and her cell phone was confiscated by federal marshalls. Apparently, she was also photographed by the marshalls.  Rakoff says he didn’t know about the intimidation by the court officers.

She stopped blogging and took down her old posts, but the three letters she sent to Rakoff still remain up. Here they are:

[I can’t use the insert links function on my blog, so I am forced to just copy-paste the material without editing]

 

  1.                 Although the daily posts of the Gupta trial have been discontinued and old posts removed, I will be silently steadfast against the U.S. Marshalls’ tactics of intimidation by continuing to attend the hearings.
     
                    To have an open debate about the three letters addressed to Judge Rakoff which precipitated the involvement of the U.S. Marshalls, I have posted them here. The first was delivered typed but the last two were transcribed to hand print because of problems with my home printer so there may have been slight changes made to choice of words in the process of that transcription. 
     
    June 7, 2012

    Note on timestamp:
    The timestamp on this site was incorrect when these posts were published.
    Note on press coverage:
    There were varying degrees of accuracy in the reporting of the statements I made to the press. There were favorable articles of me in reputable papers that did not accurately state or quote what I said. There were rather critical articles from less reputable papers that nevertheless accurately stated what I said.
    June 9, 2012

    Posted 3 weeks ago by
     
  2. To: Judge Rakoff
    Date: June 4, 2012
    Re: Expectation of a benefit
     
     
     
     
                In Friday’s finding that the expectation of some monetary return for supplying insider information is sufficient to meet the “benefit” element of an insider trading crime, I wondered if it was relevant only for the conspiracy to commit the crime or for the actual crime as well. Perhaps the disparate results of two similarly situated Defendants where one profited from the insider information and the other did not for extraneous reasons such as other market forces or trader skill, would influence such a decision.
     
     
     
    Sincerely,
     
    Benula Bensam
    Posted 3 weeks ago by
     
  3. To: Judge Rakoff
    Date: May 29, 2012
    Re: Co-conspirator theory
     
     
    Phone calls from the McKinsey office and a call from Switzerland were used to find a conspiracy of insider trading but the evidence may only have established the identity of the caller to be Gupta (out of all other possible tippers to which Rajaratnam had access) without establishing an intent. Rather, intent was assumed in this admissibility hearing. The fact that Gupta may have been close friends with Rajaratnam does not allow for a direct line of reasoning between identity and intent (although the Defense’s central argument is that the two did not have a close relationship) or where the contents of the conversations are unknown (perhaps the FBI did not have many “pertinent” calls between Gupta and Rajaratnam not because they did not frequently speak but because their conversations were personal and benign; the tape played regarding Goldman’s consideration of an AIG option may only show Gupta’s mistaken belief that strategies not pursued or rejected are confidential no longer). Unlike the sinking of a ship off the coast of the European continent to collect insurance payoffs (DeGeorge case- prior criminal acts used to prove identity alone; analogous to the Swiss call to augment the admissibility of the McKinsey call), the act can not be directly linked to the consciousness of wrongdoing.
                                                                                                                                                                                      
     
     
    Sincerely,
     
    Benula Bensam
    Posted 3 weeks ago by
     
  4. To: Judge Rakoff
    Date: May 24, 2012
    Re: William W. George and “Confidential” information
     
    Although you admitted it was a bad example, an analogy was made to narcotics crimes where some third person may testify to their understanding of “sugar” in order to prove that a defendant would also have known of the cocaine. While the meaning of “sugar” to those in the narcotics trade has a definite meaning because it refers to some physical, tangible object, the meaning of “confidential” information does not have any definite form. So, there may be an understanding of what “confidential” means to people at Goldman Sachs but this meaning may or may not be the same as the meaning of the word in the criminal statute defining insider information. One may assume that Goldman’s Code on confidentiality may be more stringent than the statute and thus any violation of Goldman’s Code would be a violation of the statute, but this assumption can not be automatically made and perhaps should be left for the jury to determine. Another problem is that even the understanding of what “confidential” information means in the context of Goldman’s Code may be varied amongst those at Goldman Sachs. There was for example, no printed disclaimer at the beginning of the Goldman Sachs Board meeting in Russia that all is “confidential” (and even if there were such a disclaimer, it would only present a rebuttable assumption of confidentiality).
     
     Perhaps the best solution would be to allow the prosecution to ask William W. George,
     1. Did he speak about the any part of the communications made in the Board meeting with anyone who   
         was not at the meeting?
    2. If not, did he feel that he was at liberty to do so if he wished?
     3. Did he hear at anytime any others present at that Board meeting discuss the information presented
        at that meeting with anyone not in attendance? (This last question may be modified to
        avoid hearsay problems).
     
     This would allow the jury to decide whether or not to draw the inference that if another member of the Goldman Sachs Board felt the information related to have been confidential, Gupta would also have taken this view (Is there a possibility that the witness may plead the 5th?).
     
    The words ‘“confidential” information’ should NOT be categorized as industry jargon; it is not precise enough (as “sugar” or “FINS” or “tape” or even “LOL”) to constitute industry jargon.  This is especially important where in the context of this case, “confidential” is a legal term, a term in common use, and a term in a company’s Corporate documents.
     
    Sincerely,
     
    Benula Bensam
    Posted 3 weeks ago by
     
  5. I was sent out of the courtroom today by U.S. Marshalls. They refused to return my cell phone and took a picture of me using their camera phone over my objections.

    Should I protest outside of the Courthouse? Tomorrow?

    Posted 4 weeks

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