Rajaratnam plea against conviction thrown out

A US court has denied a bid by billionaire hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, convicted in May this year on insider trading charges, to reverse the verdict handed by the jury in his case.

US District Judge Richard Holwell examined all the 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud on which Rajaratnam was convicted at his closely watched insider trading trial.

Sri Lanka-born Rajaratnam founded the Galleon Group of hedge funds before becoming embroiled in the biggest hedge fund insider trading case in US history, in which according to prosecutors he earned more than $50 million in profits from his trades.

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Laying out reasons in a 48-page opinion, Holwell said the government presented sufficient evidence for a conviction and rejected Rajaratnam's request to have his conviction set aside.

"A reasonable jury could have found Rajaratnam guilty as to Count One [conspiracy] on the basis of Smith's testimony alone," the judge said, referring to the testimony of Adam Smith, one of three cooperating witnesses who testified for the government at trial.

Rajaratnam's lawyers had argued at the trial that his trading was based on legitimate research and publicly available information and not on secret insider information.

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Rajaratnam's lawyers didn't immediately comment.

Rajaratnam is scheduled to be sentenced next month on the charges.

A report in the Wall Street Journal said Rajaratnam had argued in his post-trial motions that the court should set aside his conviction because prosecutors failed to introduce sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he had committed a crime.