Rajat Gupta insider trading case: Jury begins deliberations

Jurors began deliberations in the trial of former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta accused in Wall Street's biggest insider trading probe for a generation.

The New York federal court jury was given instructions by Judge Jed Rakoff following three weeks of testimony. If convicted on all conspiracy and securities fraud charges, Gupta, 63, faces up to 25 years in prison.



Prosecutors accuse Gupta, who was a board member at Goldman Sachs and headed McKinsey & Co, of feeding private, market-moving information to his former friend and hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, sentenced last year to 11 years in prison for insider trading.

The defense says Gupta is innocent and that the government has failed to provide a shred of hard evidence.


"We are now approaching the most important part of this case, your deliberations," Rakoff told the jury, before providing extensive instructions on how to consider evidence ranging from wiretapped phone conversations to stock market trades and telephone records.

With inputs from agencies