Rajat Gupta has no choice but to accept jail

New York: India-born former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta has accepted his two-year imprisonment on insider trading charges as his “destiny” while spending a low- profile life at a Massachusetts prison where he occasionally runs into his friend and hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam.

Gupta, 66, currently serving two years at the Federal Medical Centre Devens in northwest of Boston on insider trading charges, washed tables at the facility, played handball and racquetball and bridge, according to an account in the New York Times. Gupta and Rajaratnam are under the same roof at the prison with 1,000 other inmates.

Gupta occasionally runs into his one time friend-turned foe Rajaratnam, also serving an 11-year prison term on insider trading charges in the same facility, the report said. The report quoted a former inmate David E Morgan, who served about a year and half on charges related to insurance fraud, as saying that he had met Gupta and Rajaratnam at Devens.

“The two lead parallel lives that sometimes intersect. They occasionally run into each other in the common areas at Devens and exchange pleasantries. Although both men are in prison for the same crime, their friendship is irrevocably broken,” the report said.