Case: United States of America, Appellee v. Raj Rajaratnam, Defendant – Appellant.
Court: United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Raj Rajaratnam (Defendant) was convicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York of insider trading crimes on May 11, 2011 by Judge - Richard J. Holwell. Raj Rajaratnam appealed the judgement of the District Court and the case was argued on October 25, 2012 at the United States Court of Appeals, second circuit. The judgement was affirmed, on June 24, 2013 by Judge-José A. Cabranes. (United States v. Raj Rajaratnam, 2013)
Background:
Raj Rajaratnam is a founder of Galleon Group a hedge fund based in New York that managed billions of dollars in various capital market
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§ 78j (b) and 78ff, 17 C.F.R. §§ 240.10b–5 and 240.10b5–2, and 18 U.S.C. § 2.” (United States v. Raj Rajaratnam, 2013) Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison, the longest term in history for insider trading crimes, further he was asked to forfeit $53,816,434 and an additional $10 Million fine was imposed. (United States v. Raj Rajaratnam, 2011)
Raj Rajaratnam Appealed: He raised two issues for the Court of Appeals, Second Circuit -
1.) He raises several concerns in regards to the evidence obtained in wiretap of his mobile. Firstly he suggest that the District Court should suppress the evidence obtained in wiretap of his mobile phone. Secondly he disputes that the District Court erred in applying the analytical framework set forth in Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978) to govern the suppression warranted and lastly certain omissions in the wiretap application did not require suppression.
U.S Law and Judicial Precedent applicable to argument 1:
Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978) - This is a Supreme Court case that allows the defendant right to challenge the evidence obtained. The Supreme Court held that “where a warrant affidavit contains a statement, necessary to the finding of probable cause, that is demonstrated to be both false and included by an affiant knowingly and intentionally, or with reckless disregard for the truth, the warrant is not valid.” (FRANKS v. DELAWARE, 1978)
Title III of The Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968
On the date of February 4th, 1965, believing that the Petitioner had been using public pay phones to transmit illegal gambling wagers from Los Angeles to Miami and Boston, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began their surveillance into the life of the Petitioner, Charles Katz. Fifteen days later on February 19th, 1965 FBI agents working the case against the Petitioner had gained access to a phone booth within a set of phone booths that the petitioner frequented on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and summarily recorded the petitioner’s side of conversations he was having on the phone within a booth nearby. This surveillance lasted until the 25th (excluding February 22, as no evidence was obtained due to technical difficulties) the date of the petitioner’s arrest, which took place immediately after he exited the same set of phone booths. In this case there are two major constitutional questions which need to be addressed: (1) whether evidence obtained by attaching an electronic listening and recording device to the top of a public telephone booth used and occupied by the Petitioner is gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and (2) whether the search warrant used by the FBI officers in this case violated the Fourth Amendment to the constitution in that the warrant was (a) not founded on probable cause; (b) an evidentiary search warrant and (c) a general search
Evidence that is illegally obtained cannot be used in a criminal trial and officers must have a valid warrant before conducting searches or seizing evidence (Weeks v. U.S., 1914).
Overview of the Case: The Securities and Exchange Commission claims Mark D. Begelman misused proprietary information regarding the merger of Bluegreen Corporation with BFC Financial Corporation. Mr. Begelman allegedly learned of the acquisition through a network of professional connections known as the World Presidents’ Organization (Maglich). Members of this organization freely share non-public business information with other members in confidence; however, Mr. Begelman allegedly did not abide by the organization’s mandate of secrecy and leveraged private information into a lucrative security transaction. As stated in the summary of the case by the SEC, “Mark D. Begelman, a member of the World Presidents’ Organization (“WPO”), abused
was a warrant in the first place. Even so, the evidence collected illegally was presented during the case. As reasoning, the case of Wolf vs. Colorado was cited,
The question brought up to the court resulting from this case was, was the evidence admitted at trial from Riley's cell phone discovered through a search that violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches? The Supreme Court ruled
In order for evidence to be properly authenticated, “the trial judge must determine that there is proof from which a reasonable juror could find that the evidence is what the proponent claims it to be.” Sublet v. State, 442 Md. 632, 638 (2015). Indeed, the purpose of Md. Rule 5-901 is to ensure that the evidence’s proponent has satisfied a burden of production sufficient to permit a reasonable fact finder to conclude the evidence is what its proponent claims it to be. The standard for authenticity, however, is
SEC alleged that Mark Cuban violated misappropriate insider trading. To be qualified as misappropriate insider trading, an individual wrongfully obtains (misappropriates) inside information and trades on it for her or his personal benefit. In this case, Cuban actually traded his shares based on the material inside information he was told and saved him $750,000 in losses. Wrongful misappropriation means violation of a fiduciary duty.
Her attorney argued that she should never have been brought to trial because the material evidence resulted from an illegal, warrant less search. Because the search was unlawful, he maintained that the evidence was illegally obtained and must also be excluded. In its ruling, the Supreme Court of Ohio recognized that ?a reasonable argument? could be made that the conviction should be reversed ?because the ?methods? employed to obtain the evidence?were such as to offend a sense of justice.? But the court also stated that the materials were admissible evidence. The Court explained its ruling by differentiating between evidence that was peacefully seized from an inanimate object, such as a trunk, rather than forcibly seized from an individual. Based on this decision, Mapp's appeal was denied and her conviction was upheld.
HOLDING: The court actually abandoned the Aguilar-Spinelli test two-pronged test and held that When a court is making a decision to issue a search warrant, the question as to weather a person is “credibility/reliable” and where their “basis of knowledge” may have come from are to be used as guides when considering the “totality of the circumstances”and are and not requirements in every
The raid on Ms. Mapp’s home ended with the discovery that there was no suspect hiding there and also the no illegal betting materials. The only things that were found were some pornographic materials in the room of Ms. Mapp. Mapp was then arrested for the possession of pornographic material, she was subsequently prosecuted, found guilty by the court and sentenced for the material. During the trial the prosectors nor any other party were ever able to produce a search warrant. We later find out the police never obtained a search warrant and Ms. Mapp sought to overturn her conviction because the evidence used in her case was obtained during an illegal search and seizure. At this time there was already established precedent that illegally obtained evidence was
Aguilar v. Texas established the “two-pronged test” for determining whether a confidential informant’s tip is enough to establish probable cause for a magistrate to issue a search warrant (Aguilar v. Texas, 1964). The test consisted of the reliability of the informant and the basis of knowledge that he or she has of the criminal activity. While these two elements are important, they should not be the sole basis that a magistrate uses to prove probable cause exists. Instead, these elements should be used to as guides when considering the totality of the circumstances of the situation. Illinois v. Gates vacated the two-pronged tests and installed the traditional “totality of the circumstances” approach.
Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) by individuals with access to nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, trading based on insider information is illegal. A great example for that is when “R. Foster Winans: The Corruptible Columnist Although not high-ranking in terms of dollars, the case of Wall Street Journal columnist R. Foster Winans is a landmark case for its curious outcome. Winans wrote the "Heard on the Street" column profiling a certain stock. The stocks featured in the column often went up or down according to Winans' opinion. Winans leaked the contents of his column to a group of stockbrokers, who used the tip to take up positions in
Jordan Belfort is the notorious 1990’s stockbroker who saw himself earning fifty million dollars a year operating a penny stock boiler room from his Stratton Oakmont, Inc. brokerage firm. Corrupted by drugs, money, and sex, he went from being an innocent twenty – two year old on the fringe of a new life to manipulating the system in his infamous “pump and dump” scheme. As a stock swindler, he would motivate his young brokers through insane presentations to rile them up as they defrauded investors with duplicitous stock sales. Toward the end of this debauchery tale he was convicted for securities fraud and money laundering for which he was sentenced to twenty – two months in prison as well as recompensing two – hundred million in
There are many tangible circumstances that tend to prove or disprove some facts in all criminal or civil cases. Under rule 41(b) “A warrant may be issued under this rule to search for and seize any (1) property that constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offenses; or (2) contraband, the fruits of a crime, or things otherwise criminally possessed; or (3) property designed or intended for use or which is or has been used as the means of committing a criminal offense; or (4) person for whose arrest there is probable cause, or who is unlawfully restrained” (John N. Ferdico, 1999). Evidence is one of the single most important pieces of a criminal trial. It is used to determine a defendant’s guilt or innocence.
Insider trading refers to the trading of a listed company’s stock or other financial securities by individuals who has access to non-public material information about the company. This action often occurs within employees/ex-employees of the listen company. Information is considered to be non-public material information if making it public would affect the price of securities, and using such information in decisions to buy or sell financial securities would be unfair to non-insiders (Bainbridge, 2013). Insider trading is treated as a mischief in more than 90 countries, and defendants are imposed with penalties (Beny, 2012). Specific insider conduct regulations in New Zealand were first enacted in 1988, followed by amendments in 2002, 2006 and 2008. The insider conduct regimes between 1988 and 2008 are often considered as a failure due to weak enforcements. Thus in 2008, the regulator introduced a new regime, which was a close model to the Australian insider conduct legislation. Both regimes are expansive, meaning it could be applied to any person in possession of insider information. However, while the Australian laws were aggressively enforced (more than 26 prosecutions were brought since then), no prosecutions have been launched under the new legislation in New Zealand. In addition, New Zealand also had no convictions secured prior to 2008, illustrating a clear enforcement deficit in the New Zealand