Rajaratnam Jury Will Begin Deliberations Next Week

Next week the jury will start deliberations in the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading case, and we'll all await its outcome.  Wednesday and Thursday of this week were devoted to closing arguments, although the prosecutor's rebuttal carries over until Monday.  Reading the accounts of the closing statements, I confess I felt sorry for the jurors; after six weeks of testimony, they had to listen to both sides go back and forth on the now very familiar themes.  The government's closing argument (5 hours!) emphasized several of the more than 40 taped phone conversations introduced into evidence and took the jury through a number of examples where it alleges RR received tips from insiders.  The defense repeated its theme -- RR used publicly available information and good analysis to make his trading decisions.  It also sought to discredit the testimony of the government witnesses and called them liars.

Now we'll sit back and wait.