Raj Rajaratnam hits out at an unfair conviction in a ‘tell all’ book

Billionaire financier, Raj Rajaratnam, American of Sri Lankan descent who founded the Galleon Fund, now out of jail after serving seven and a half years of an 11-year sentence, has written what Amazon calls “a hot new release on criminal law……… illustrating prosecutorial overreach.”

The book is titled “Uneven Justice” with a subtitle “The Sinking of Galleon.” The hedge fund managed USD seven billion and employed 180 people in its heyday.

The writer who was arrested in October 2009 and charged with insider trading, says he chose to fight the charges against him “because I was innocent” and understanding the stakes chose to go trial because he expected a fair hearing.

He says he believed that that with a fair hearing and a rational exposition of the facts, “the truth would have prevailed.” He took the chance despite his understanding that in the US there is a 97% conviction rate, similar to Russia and China, and a punitive trial penalty for those who dare to go to trial.

“Empirical studies have shown that the trial penalty is just about double that handed to those who plead guilty. If a defendant agrees to become a cooperating witness, helping the government with testimony –irrespective of the truth – to convict another defendant, the co-operating witnesses gets a much reduced-sentence and in many cases just parole,” he says in the preface of his book.

Its sales proceeds will be donated to charity.

The Amazon blurb says that Rajaratnam chose to go to trial rather than concede to a false narrative concocted by ambitious prosecutors looking for a scapegoat for the 2008 financial crisis.

“As an immigrant who had achieved tremendous success in his adopted country, he trusted the system. He had not anticipated prosecutorial overreach – inspired by political ambition – FBI fabrications, judicial compliance and lies told under oath by cooperating witnesses,” the blurb says.

“Meanwhile not a single bank executive responsible for the financial crisis was ever charged.”

(See Rajaratnam’s preface to the book on p-12)