Gupta's lawyers claim prosecutors lacked 'hard, direct' proof in insider trading case

New York, June 16 (ANI): Lawyers for former Indian-American Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, who has been found guilty of insider trading, said that prosecutors lacked 'real, hard, direct' evidence against their client.

Gupta, 63, was found guilty of passing on confidential market information to hedge boss Raj Rajaratnam .

He was convicted on three charges of securities fraud and one charge of consipracy in the highest-profile insider trading case that corporate America has seen in years, The Telegraph reports.

US prosecutors claimed Gupta used his positions on the boards of Goldman and Procter and Gamble to pass information to Rajaratnam, who then reaped millions of dollars in profit from trading on it.

Gupta, who denied the charges, could face more than a decade in prison when he is sentenced on October 18.

According to the paper, one of the allegations made against Gupta was that following a Goldman board meeting on September 23, 2008, he informed Rajaratnam that billionaire investor Warren Buffett was going to make 5 billion dollars investment in the bank.

The investment came at a time when many Wall Street banks were scrambling for capital. (ANI)