Mr. Gupta. (World Economic Forum/Michael Wuertenberg)

One day after corporate chieftain Rajat Gupta was sentenced to two years in prison after his conviction on insider trading charges, a different judge sentenced a former AT&T employee who pleaded guilty to sharing privileged information with investors to one year's jail time.

Alnoor Ebrahim, who pleaded guilty in June to sharing sales information for AT&T handset devices, including the iPhone and Blackberry. Mr. Ebrahim, who was sentenced by Judge Paul J. Oetken, was paid more than $180,000 for his work with expert network Primary Global Research, which consisted of hundreds of calls with the firm's clients.

While Mr. Ebrahim role at AT&T was as an "associate director of channel marketing," according to a press release from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Mr. Gupta is a former chief executive officer at consulting firm McKinsey & Co., charged by the government with passing information gained through his standing as a director on the board of Fortune 500 companies with hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.

There are other notable differences. Mr. Gupta was convicted after a jury trial (though Judge Jed Rakoff, who presided over the case, said at Mr. Gupta's sentencing hearing that he wouldn't hold that fact against the defendant) and was found by the jury to have committed insider trading in a pair of isolated instances. He also had the benefit of a top-flight attorney in Gary P. Naftalis, who marshaled Mr. Gupta's friends and acquaintances to mount a letter-writing campaign extolling Mr. Gupta's good works.

Perhaps most important is that Mr. Gupta didn't profit directly from insider trading, said Kevin O'Brien, a former U.S. Attorney and partner at NYC Harris, O’Brien, St. Laurent & Houghteling. "Gupta was such a weird case because he didn't profit," he told us. "If you're doing it for money, you can be deterred by penalties. But if you're doing it for status of prestige, it's almost non-deterrable."

World Economic Forum/Michael Wuertenberg

Rajat Gupta, the former chief executive officer of McKinsey & Co., was sentenced to two years imprisonment for insider trading this afternoon during a hearing presided over by Judge Jed Rakoff at the U.S. Southern District courthouse.

Mr. Gupta, who was convicted in May of using his position on the board of directors at Goldman Sachs to pass privileged information to Galleon Group hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, has sought probation in lieu of imprisonment. The government recommended a jail term of eight to 10 years.

“With today’s sentence, Rajat Gupta now must face the grave consequences of his crime," said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in an emailed statement. "His conduct has forever tarnished a once-sterling reputation that took years to cultivate. We hope that others who might consider breaking the securities laws will take heed from this sad occasion and choose not to follow in Mr. Gupta’s footsteps.”

In arguing for a lighter sentence, Mr. Gupta's attorney Gary P. Naftalis  reiterated his client's "extraordinary" philanthropic record, reading from letters written on behalf of the former corporate chieftain, and argued that Mr. Gupta's fall from grace was punishment enough for his crimes.

"He had one of the best reputations on the planet," said Mr. Naftalis at today's hearing, which The Observer attended from an upstairs spillover room at the downtown Manhattan courthouse. "His reputation was a lot more important than any amount of money could be."

Judge Rakoff acknowledged Mr. Gupta's humanitarian record, but said that insider trading was "easy to commit, hard to catch," and that the need for deterrent was strong.

The effect of Mr. Gupta's crime, said Judge Rakoff, was "to place in jeopardy the integrity of the marketplace, one of the greatest assets this country possesses."

Mr. Gupta is generally considered to be the most prominent figure to be convicted during the government's ongoing crackdown on insider trading, which has netted more than 70 convictions or guilty pleas over the last three years. Mr. Rajaratnam, the hedge fund manager at the hub of many of the Justice Department's recent insider trading cases, is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence.

Mr. Gupta was also fined $5 million.

In one case, the government charged Manouchehr Moshayedi, the CEO of a California-based computer storage device outfit called STEC for failing to disclose negative information about the company before selling shares in a secondary offering. To wit: the SEC alleges that Mr. Moshayedi entered into a side deal with a customer to sell more product than the company needed, thus boosting STEC's revenue—and share price with it—ahead of Mr. Moshayedi's stock sale. That sounds more like fraud to Mr. Henning and less like "converting corporate information for personal gain." Which is about the same place Matt Levine came out at when he wrote about the case last week.

(Mr. Levine's supposition on the government's motive: "If every time someone fails to tell you something about what they’re peddling, you call it “insider trading,” then insider trading is in fact the main problem with financial markets, and the regulators are doing a good job by focusing on it.")

Mr. Henning's also notes the government's case against Ladislav Schvacho, who's alleged to have notched a neat $500,000 profit trading the stock of a staffing company called Comsys after learning that the company was about to be acquired. Mr. Schvacho's source of information? His friend Larry L. Enterline, who at the time was Comsys' CEO. There's a question of precedent here, and we'll let Mr. Henning deal with it:

In United States v. Chestman, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a marital relationship as sufficient for insider trading liability when a husband learned of an impending deal from his wife. Whether the personal friendship between Mr. Schvacho and Mr. Enterline is enough for an insider trading violation is certainly questionable, although the case was filed in Georgia (which is in the 11th Circuit), so the Chestman decision is not directly controlling.

Which in turn reminded us of our less learned reaction to the SEC's complaint against Mr. Svchacho when we read it last week: That the government's description of the friendship between the pair sounded a little euphemistic.

Well, the point is that the SEC appears to be pushing on the definition of insider trading, and whether that's because it's running out of traditional cases to try, or wants to expand its bailiwick, or as in Mr. Levine's fun but too good/conspiratorial-to-be-true conception, is aiming at improving the government's reputation for policing financial crime, we're not in position to say. But it's interesting ponder, and in any case (and maybe we're feeling a little punchy) we're still tickled by the government's "good friend" press release.

Picking up the pace: The Treasury and the Fed are speeding efforts to offload assets acquired during the 2008 bailout of the country's banking system. The government is expected to sell or be repaid on $29 billion in securities in the months to come.

Set free: Anil Kuman, the cooperating witness you helped the government secure insider-trading convictions against Raj Rajaratnam and Rajat Gupta, was rewarded yesterday, receiving two years probation and no jail time for his involvement in the insider-trading scheme run by Mr. Rajaratnam.

Stiffer penalties: Japanese lawmakers are seeking to rewrite securities law to provide for criminal prosecution of brokerages and bankers that leak inside information. No underwriters have been charged for giving investors early word on new stock offerings in Japan's ongoing insider trading probe.

Movers: Robert Wolf, the top UBS banker whose close ties to President Barack Obama seeming to some like less an asset and more a liability, leaving the bank to open his own shop, called 32 Advisors. Credit Suisse hired Morgan Stanley banker David Hammond to lead its metal and mining advisory. Don Mullen, one of the architects of Goldman Sachs' big subprime trade, is aiming to raise a $500 million fund to buy foreclosed homes as rental properties.

Splits: Whitney Tilson plans to keep a lower profile after separating from T2 partner Glenn Tongue. "I will dramatically reduce my television appearances, interviews with the media, blogging/writing, and public speaking, both in the investment and philanthropic realms," he said in a letter obtained by Dealbreaker.

Student protection: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recommended Congress rewrite a 2005 law to allow student debtors to seek bankruptcy protection on private loans.

IPO off: Guitar maker Fender is not going public after all, citing market conditions in cancelling its initial public offering.

Have you seen this man?

One minute, Edward Brogan was being courted by brokers at the biggest Japanese banks, who treated the Japan Advisory hedge fund manager to Italian meals and late-night visits to certain, clothing-optional type of establishment. The next minute, he'd disappeared amid insider trading allegation. From Reuters:

Dubbed the "King of Tokyo" by traders, the 53-year-old American seemed to have it all: wealth, professional acclaim and status as a patron of contemporary art. In his best year, Brogan had managed over one billion dollars in his flagship Whitney Japan Fund, although much of that has been withdrawn. Now Brogan is at the center of a probe of insider trading. His Tokyo-based firm Japan Advisory has been closed since regulators imposed a fine and revoked its license at the end of June. The order came after Japan's securities watchdog determined Japan Advisory had shorted shares in Nippon Sheet Glass in August 2010 on the basis of leaked information that the glassmaker was planning an additional share offering that would have diluted its value per share. It was one of five insider trading cases unearthed so far by authorities after a grinding two-year investigation into allegations of widespread insider trading ahead of public share offerings in Japan. Brogan, who is said to be overseas, has not been charged with any wrongdoing, an none of the current raft of insider trading investigations in Japan has included any legal sanctions against individuals. "He's not in Japan, and I haven't heard when he's coming back," Brogan's Japanese-born wife, Junko, told Reuters. "I think he's being made a scapegoat by the Japanese government."

Lloyd Blankfein testifies at the insider trading trial of Rajat Gupta (r.) as Judge Jed Rakoff looks on. (Shirley Shepard/AFP/GettyImages)

For anyone who’d like to see the bank executives who led America into the teeth of the financial crisis strung up by the laces of their Prada wingtips, a trip to the Southern District courthouse in Lower Manhattan may be a deflating experience.

The Observer had come to the federal courthouse seeking succor. Late last month, Reuters laid hands on an internal memo from the Securities and Exchange Commission declaring its investigation into Lehman Brothers was unlikely to lead to criminal charges. In the time it took Dick Fuld to type “the Bros always wins!!” the SEC was feeding reporters the company line: Lehman prosecutions were still a possibility.

That claim became harder to credit this weekend, alas, when SEC enforcement director Robert Khuzami told C-Span cameras that the worst crisis-era bets on souring mortgage bonds were made below the level of the executive suite. (Hmm. Did someone forget to eat his Wheaties?)

U.S. v. Gupta was supposed to be another story. Southern District U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has been on an insider-trading tear, after all, winning convictions or guilty pleas in 59 of the 66 cases his office has brought since 2009. In the most high-profile case, the government gained an 11-year sentence for Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire hedge fund manager caught paying corporate insiders to convey privileged information.

Rajat Gupta was among those who supplied Mr. Rajaratnam inside dope, the government said, alleging the former Mc-
Kinsey & Co. chief executive used his standing as a board director at such corporations as Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble to pass secrets to Mr. Rajaratnam’s Galleon Group. In one damning-if-true instance, the government says Mr. Gupta telephoned Mr. Rajaratnam minutes after learning that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was primed to invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs. Galleon bought Goldman stock—and turned a quick million-dollar profit.

But securities law, it turns out, is not the best fuel for populist outrage. We knew that white-collar prosecutions were notoriously hard to win, that wealthy defendants could spend vast sums on defense lawyers, that the complexities of financial cases could wilt the attention of the perkiest juries. It wasn’t until we’d planted ourselves on the hard wooden pews at 500 Pearl Street that we felt the full gravity of the conventional wisdom.

The resource gap between defense and prosecution was clear on the first day of the trial, when four attorneys from Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel huddled in the courtroom with an outside jury consultant, even as junior lawyers back at the firm’s Midtown offices poured over a real-time feed of the trial transcript. The prosecution objected. Surely it wasn’t fair for the defense to employ muscle outside the courthouse to research potential jurors’ names? They might as well outsource the voir dire to a team of freelance Facebook trawlers in Bangalore! But Judge Jed Rakoff—the same cranky legalist who’s made a reputation for hard treatment of financial institutions—allowed the outside help.

It got worse. Though the charges against Mr. Gupta are particularly egregious—a board director at Fortune 500 companies stepping out of a confidential meeting to funnel stock tips to a hedge fund manager is about as morally offensive as insider trading can get—the evidence is largely circumstantial. In its case against Mr. Rajaratnam, the government had smoking-hot wiretaps and corroborating witnesses to prove their case. It still took jurors a week to return a guilty verdict.

The evidence in Gupta was flimsier: witness testimony and phone records indicate that Mr. Gupta and Mr. Rajaratnam spoke around 3:55 p.m. on the day Mr. Buffett announced his Goldman stake, for instance, and in a wiretapped call the next day Mr. Rajaratnam told a Galleon trader that he’d received a tip that  “something good might happen to Goldman.” In a wiretapped call a month later, Mr. Rajaratnam told another trader that “I heard yesterday from someone who’s on the board of Goldman Sachs that they’re going to lose $2 a share, the market has them making $2.50.”

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots, but that doesn’t mean a jury will try.

The defendant, meanwhile, had the best lawyers money could buy poking holes in the government’s case. Since Gary P. Naftalis left a post as a Southern District prosecutor more than three decades ago, he’s been tapped by everyone from Kidder Peabody and Salomon Brothers to Michael Eisner and the former-CEOs of Arthur Andersen and WorldCom. The Times has dubbed Mr. Naftalis “Columbo with a law degree” for the lawyer’s disheveled looks and folksy sense of humor. In Judge Rakoff’s courtroom, Mr. Naftalis appeared as if he’d just stepped out of a rainstorm (it wasn’t raining). The Observer wasn’t fooled, of course, but we were a little bit charmed and certainly discouraged.

Mr. Naftalis is the type of lawyer you get when you have millions in the bank and a strong desire to stay out of prison. He’s the kind of lawyer that the prosecutors on the case, Reed Brodsky and Richard Tarlowe, may dream of one day becoming.

Mr. Naftalis’s goal was to blow some smoke, and he proved adept at it.

“If you’re the defense, the normal procedure is to get the jury confused and bored,” John Coffee, a Columbia law professor, told us. “If they’re bored, they miss the smoking gun when it’s produced. If the defense can get the legal issues convoluted, the jury is unlikely to send a man away over issues they can’t understand.”

He added: “I’ve testified as an expert witness in securities cases and looked over and actually seen jurors sleeping.”

“It’s part of the reason that there are so few criminal prosecutions,” said Steve Thel, a professor at Fordham Law. “Prosecutors are reluctant to take on complicated cases.”

Those selected to sit in judgment of the Gupta case included a registered nurse, an elementary school teacher and a freelance beauty consultant. “I am in awe of our jury because they have managed to remain attentive,” Judge Rakoff said last week, urging lawyers on both sides to make things more interesting.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brodsky started dumbing down the financial lingo with his very first witness, asking Mr. Rajaratnam’s former executive assistant to define a hedge fund. “It’s a place where stocks are traded,” the witness answered. And we thought it was the loose bills our Auntie Vera keeps stashed in a coffee can to pay for gardening supplies! The next day, Assistant US Attorney Tarlowe asked a witness what an index was. “It’s a stock made up of other stocks,” came the reply.

At least the defense left those definitions uncontested. On day three of the trial, the defense unleashed a barrage of objections to Mr. Tarlowe’s examination of the trader who executed Mr. Rajaratnam’s infamous Goldman trade.

“What does it mean to raise $2.5 billion in a common stock offering?” Mr. Tarlowe asked.

“Objection,” offered the defense. Sustained.

“What is your understanding of what it means to raise $2.5 billion in a common stock offering?” Mr. Tarlowe reworded.

“Objection,” said the defense. Sustained.

“Do you know how a stock offering works?” Mr. Tarlowe attempted.

“Yes,” said the witness.

“How do you know?” asked Mr. Tarlowe.

“Objection.”

“Was that objection on foundation or relevance?” Judge Rakoff chimed in. “Foundation and relevance,” Mr. Naftalis quipped, turning to the press gallery, “and whatever else we can think of.”

There were other moments of drama. After one cross-examination, Mr. Naftalis exclaimed “Got him!” loud enough for the jury to hear. On another occasion, the defense counsel made a thumbs-up as he walked away from the witness stand. Mr. Brodsky complained about the grandstanding. Mr. Naftalis complained about Mr. Brodsky’s treatment of a witness. “I think we’re down to a very polite form of name-calling and that’s not what I want to hear from either counsel,” Judge Rakoff scolded, but the defense had gotten the better of the exchange.

Prosecutors don’t generally try cases they can’t win, and the government may have a key element on its side. “Juries pick up signals from the judge,” said Mr. Coffee. “If the judge is leaning one way or another, the jury tends to lean in the same direction.” Judge Rakoff has developed a reputation in recent years as a thorn in the side of financial firms, most recently blocking an SEC settlement with Citigroup and chiding the watchdog for letting the bank off the hook without either a fine or an admission of wrongdoing. “The most disturbing thing about this case is what it says about business ethics,” Mr. Rakoff told the courtroom in the Gupta case. “It’s not a case of one bad apple, but a bushelful.”

Nor would we trivialize the government’s efforts. If Mr. Gupta used his position as a corporate director to feed Galleon Group profitable secrets, Mr. Gupta should go to jail. But we confess to having held out hope, in whatever naïveté, that the government still had bigger fish to fry. After all, Lehman’s bankruptcy examiner Anton R. Valukas reported that Lehman Brothers moved up to $50 billion in bad assets off the firm’s balance sheet in so-called Repo 105 transactions, concealing the bank’s failing state from shareholders and regulators alike. The SEC is pursuing cases against senior officers at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the claims seem to stop short of criminalizing the mortgage giants’ role in the foreclosure crisis. Indeed, whatever the government’s chances in Gupta—Mr. Coffee handicapped the trial at 60-40 in favor of a conviction—our visit to Judge Rakoff’s courtroom didn’t do much to engender hope of bigger cases.

There’s another challenge to securing convictions in white-collar cases: tangible victims are often lacking. Indeed, it was Mr. Gupta—a silver glint in his combed-back hair, mouth frozen in a dignified grimace—who gave off the air of the wronged party. Behind him sat two benches full of supporters, often including his daughters, who looked just as polished as you would expect from a foursome who holds seven Ivy League degrees. What’s that you say? What about the shareholders in the firms Mr. Gupta allegedly betrayed, or the taxpayers who propped up failing financial institutions?

We suppose those victims were everywhere in the Southern District courthouse, whether they realized it or not.

pclark@observer.com

And who knows what lies in store next for the gracious old beauty, bought for $5.97 million, a smidge over the $5.85 million ask? The buyer was mysterious Cyprus-based Costalea Holdings Limited. Is more glamor and intrigue even possible?

The house is co-listed with Corcoran and Ron Teitelbaum Properties. Currently the four-story brownstone has been configured as two duplexes. Besides star power, it boasts five fireplaces, interior shutters and a solarium. Mr. Baconovic bought the home for $1.8 million in 2000.

Robert Browne, Mr. Baconovic's broker at Corcoran, told The New York Times that he was selling the property because he wanted to make a change.

Mr. Baconovic, Ms. Stewart's former stock broker, sold the domestic goddess's ImClone stock right before the price plummeted. He was ultimately found guilty of perjury, conspiracy and making false statements.

The two once bonded over their love of chow chows and spent Christmases in Connecticut together, but the former friends' relationship has turned frosty, and their fates diverged, since the case.

While Ms. Stewart's time in the slammer has brought a much-needed down-to-earth charm to Ms. Stewart's other-worldly perfection, Mr. Baconovic's struggle to return to something resembling his former life has been well-documented. After being ousted as CEO of Fred Leighton, Mr. Baconovic now works as a management consultant. No word on where his next residence will be. Perhaps the occasional film buff snapping photos gave him unpleasant memories of his paparazzi-plagued past.

And although film websites report that the movie's interior scenes were shot in a Hollywood studio, Mr. Browne gave The Times a little inside information: After a careful viewing of the film, Mr. Baconvic was convinced that his living room hosted the party where Holly donned a dress fashioned from a bed sheet.

kvelsey@observer.com

Mr. Knnucan's experiences set a handy, simple, two-step example for those seeking to tread the same path he's taken:

1. Engage in insider trading. While Mr. Kinnucan has yet to be convicted for the crime he is accused of, this is obviously of great importance if you want to get arrested for insider trading.

2. Dare the government to arrest you. Both figuratively:

"How the f--k can you live?" Kinnucan said to the cooperating witness in a voice mail on Feb. 11, according to the government. "Do you have a family, do you have children, do you have a wife? How can you even walk down the street, why don't you just f--king kill yourself?"

And/or literally:

Federal agents first approached Mr. Kinnucan at his Portland, Ore., home in late 2010...Mr. Kinnucan...fired off an e-mail to warn his clients. "Today two fresh faced eager beavers from the FBI showed up unannounced (obviously) on my doorstep thoroughly convinced that my clients have been trading on copious inside information," the e-mail said. "We obviously beg to differ, so have therefore declined the young gentleman's gracious offer to wear a wire and therefore ensnare you in their devious web."

In the months after the e-mail surfaced, Mr. Kinnucan granted dozens of interviews to the media, lambasting the government’s efforts while defending himself. Later, as the case dragged on, his communications grew stranger. He fired off rants against the federal prosecutors investigating the case – notes that included expletives and racial epithets. He dared the government to arrest him.

It's practically foolproof. Questions?

Government Snares a Vocal Critic in Latest Insider Trading Charges [Dealbook]
Kinnucan's Phone Threats Should Bar His Release, U.S. Says [Bloomberg]
SEC charges tech analyst with insider trading [CNN Money]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Jonathan Streeter is a Upper West Side-residing 43 year-old lawyer who joined the U.S. Attorney's office in 2000. He was part of what Business Insider called the "prosecutorial dream team" who took down Big Raj last year, and delivered the opening and closing arguments for the government's case. In the Wall Street Journal's profile of him last year, he was described as "unflappable." He was also noted in the Journal profile and a New York Post profile as an avid water-skier whose father was a lifer at one of Cleveland's oldest law firms, where he was raised. He was also a prosecutor in a bunch of other high-profile trials that weren't Raj Raj's, which The Observer detailed in a profile of Mr. Streeter last March:

He has won convictions or guilty pleas for executives accused of accounting fraud, traders who cooked the books, money launderers and insurance fraudsters. He successfully argued against Manhattan attorney Marc Dreier, a con man who trafficked in fake securities. He got a conviction against former Ernst & Young partner James Gansman for insider trading, and against former Duane Reade execs Anthony Cuti and William Tennant for padding their quarterly earnings report.

And now, he'll be defending those same guys. Not the ones he sent to prison, of course. But the ones like them! FIN Alternatives notes:

Streeter is to join law firm Dechert's litigation department. He'll be an equity partner at the high-profile firm, starting next month.

Never heard of Dechert? They're an international law firm that looks more like a conglomerate. They've got 21 offices around the world. They've represented Big Tobacco on behalf of Phillip-Morris in the class action suits against the cancer-stick maker.
They've represented Big Pharma on behalf of Merck & Co. in class action lawsuits against them. To be fair, they occasionally do things like represent Guantanamo Bay detainees who maybe shouldn't be there—which, of course, like everyone else they defend—the American government hates. And of course, they do a ton of White Collar defense. They've repped Enron! This is like leaving one team for their team's rival, and being paid a bunch for it (remember, he's being made an equity partner) because you wrote your old team's playbook.

The reason this news is important and is being reported everywhere from Dealbook to the Wall Street Journal and back, isn't so much because Mr. Streeter is a great lawyer—he clearly is—or because moves like this are an uncommon occurance—they're not—but because of the subtext, which implies that everyone in this world, no matter how committed to the concept of justice they are, has a price. And Mr. Streeter, once another one of the Good Guys, and Protector Of The Interests Of The People, just cashed his in. And it was offered by the defense team of the exact stripe of people he once helped take down.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Photographer: Peter Foley/Bloomberg via Getty.

Raj Rajaratnam is likely in the market for some new "inside" tips about now: how he's going to survive eleven years in prison, the sentence for the $64M worth of insider trading he was recently found guilty for that was handed down today. UPDATED: It's being suggested that Raj is going to the same prison as Bernie Madoff, The Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C.

Tip #1: The South Asian Mafia doesn't have the stronghold in the pen one in his position might hope for.

The former Galleon Group chief used tipsters from the likes of I.B.M. and Intel to pick up big gains. Peter Lattman at Dealbook noted that the sentence was lighter than prosecutors had hoped for (19 to 24 years) but that it continues in a trend of harsher sentences for white collar crimes (even though "the average sentence of the 13 other defendants connected to Mr. Rajaratnam’s case has been about three years"). He also got a $10M fine—again, for $64M worth of manipulating markets, and if that sounds like a $54M difference, it is—but whatever. The guy's got larger problems at the moment. Like whoever his cell-mate's going to be.

Other reactions from around the web:

One primer on how Raj may have recieved a harsher sentence for being defiant to a testosterone-loaded government hellbent on winning: "If Rajaratnam’s sentence is enhanced because he refused to surrender his judgment, a man who has been accused of corrupting others to gain stock tips will be sentenced, in part, for showing that the government has failed to corrupt him."

Twitter: "Racism rearing its ugly head."

Also: "Madoff's pissed."

And finally: "Gordon Gecko SMH*."

*"Shaking my head."

UPDATE: We're now reading via Joe Wiesenthal at Business Insider that Rajaratnam is being sent to the same prison as Bernie Madoff. It's also known as the same prison Bernie Madoff was beaten in.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek