With the US Supreme Court rejecting outright his plea to remain free on bail till a decision on his appeal to rehear his conviction in the insider trading case, top Indian-American honcho Rajat Gupta now faces the grim prospect of having to begin serving his two-year prison sentence, starting June 17.
Gupta, the former managing director of McKinsey and then a director of Goldman Sachs, had in a last-ditch attempt moved the apex court on Tuesday after a federal appellate court in New York rejected a similar plea last Friday.
Convicted in 2012 of passing confidential board room financial information to his friend and business associate Raj Rajaratnam, the 65-year-old Gupta has been waging a protracted battle for a reversal of his conviction.
After a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld his conviction in March, Gupta was expected to begin serving his prison sentence in June.
But Gupta filed a petition in April with the full Second Circuit Appeals Court for rehearing his appeal against his conviction. The appeals court is still to act on this matter.
“If Gupta is forced to surrender before his certiorari proceedings are resolved, there is a high likelihood that, were this Court to grant certiorari, Gupta will have served at least half of his two-year sentence before the Court issues its decision,” his lawyers said in their submission.
On Tuesday, Gupta's lawyers filed a 118-page appeal with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who handles emergency applications from the 2nd Circuit, but she denied on Wednesday Gupta's request to stay out of prison.
Jed Rakoff, the trial judge, has agreed to recommend that Gupta be assigned to a medium-security prison in Otisville, New York, about 110 km northwest of New York City.