Rajat Gupta's defence lawyer Gary Naftalis has poked holes in the prosecution's case and steered the jury to possibly doubting the credibility of some witnesses
Rajat K Gupta is remarkably poised for a man who, if convicted of criminal conspiracy and securities fraud, could spend up to 20 years in jail.
The 63-year-old ex-McKinsey head and former director on the boards of Goldman Sachs and Proctor & Gamble must have walked into meetings in a similar dark blue suit, silk tie and crisp white shirt.
But today, May 29, at the US District Court in the southern district of New York in Manhattan, he and his defence team from Kramer, Levin, Naftalis & Frankel LLP are fighting the fight of his life. Gary P Naftalis, the law firm’s co-chair, is one of America’s top white-collar defence lawyers.
“Gupta is lucky to have Naftalis,” says Stephen Gillers, professor of law at New York University, who has known both Naftalis and the presiding judge, Jed S Rakoff, for years. Gupta needs all the luck he can get.
In a six-count indictment, the US Department of Justice charged that Gupta “joined in an agreement or understanding” with Galleon Group’s Raj Rajaratnan, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence and was fined $156 million, “to disclose inside information about Goldman Sachs, P&G, and the JM Smucker Company.”
“This is their pattern trade,” Naftalis said. Slowly and surely, he has steered the jury to possibly doubting the credibility of some witnesses. According to media reports, Naftalis is portraying Cardillo and other Galleon employees as merely bragging about having inside sources in high places.
(This story appears in the 22 June, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)