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5 Oct 2010

Rajaratnam Challenges Wiretap Evidence

New York (HedgeCo.net) - Hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam is again seeking to throw out the evidence gained by the prosecution's wiretapping evidence.

"In applying for wiretap permission in March 2008, an FBI agent failed to tell a judge about prior lengthy probes of his client by securities regulators and the FBI." Rajaratnam's lawyer, John Dowd, told Monday's Manhattan federal court hearing, according to Reuters.

In Feburary, Dowd attacked the U.S. government’s wiretap evidence saying he would file a motion to suppress the telephone recordings which were used to arrest Rajaratnam and more than a dozen other people in the Galleon raid. Rajaratnam then won an emergency order relieving him from having to turn over wiretap recordings because of legal hurdles in obtaining the 14,000 wiretap intercepts.

"The recordings were cherry picked and mismanaged and someone did not do their homework." Dowd told the Judge in the Feb hearing.

The hedge fund millionaire was taken into custody in New York on Oct. 16, 2009 in what is being called the USA’s largest hedge fund insider-trading scheme. He and his co-defendant, Danielle Chiesi, face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on the charges.