US judge bars wiretap evidence in Rajat Gupta case

A US district court trying former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta for insider trading, has ruled against admitting wiretaps as evidence for now, suggesting that another Goldman insider was behind some of the alleged tips passed on to Raj Rajaratnam, head of the hedge fund Galleon Group.

US District Judge Jed S Rakoff said he was not inclined to allow the defence to introduce two wiretapped phone calls between Goldman's David Loeb and Rajaratnam.

The calls, recorded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its investigation of the convicted and imprisoned Rajaratnam, reveal that some of his illegal tips came from Loeb, Goldman Sachs's head of Asia equity sales in New York, according to Gupta's defence lawyer.

At a hearing after the trial Monday, David Frankel, a lawyer for Gupta, argued the defence should be allowed to play wiretaps made on 7 and 22 August 2008 as they show Loeb passing material non-public information to Rajaratnam about Intel Corp and Apple.

Frankel also sought to show the jury e-mails that Loeb and Rajaratnam exchanged. Frankel said they show Loeb claims he obtained his information from a Goldman Sachs analyst covering Taiwan.

Earlier, Gupta's eldest daughter Geetanjali Gupta, 33, and some of his old friends briefly testified on his behalf after he decided not to take the witness stand himself, as he had considered doing earlier.