Rajat Gupta Trial Day One: Judge Rakoff Moves the Case Along

By 3:00PM on the first day of trial a jury was selected! FoxBusiness.com has the story here. Buffett may be called to testify. That's Warrren, not Jimmy.

According to Fox:

"Earlier Monday, a jury of 12 New Yorkers and four alternates were chosen. They include a fourth grade teacher, a physician’s assistant and an executive at a nonprofit. The four man, eight woman group also includes a psychiatric nurse and a freelance beauty consultant. They’ll decide whether Gupta leaked confidential information about Goldman and P&G to former Galleon hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam."

Uh-oh. Sounds like a lunchbucket Manhattan jury. Not always a good sign for high-dollar, high-rolling white collar defendants. On the other hand, the government's case here is much weaker than the one it brought against Raj Rajaratnam. And Gupta is represented by Gary Naftalis, whose skill is every bit as great as his reputation. This should be the first fair fight in a big insider trading case in quite some time.

(wisenberg)