Antilla: Angelic side of Wall St. devils

Rajat Gupta, the former McKinsey & Co. chief and pal of imprisoned inside trader Raj Rajaratnam, has one goal after being convicted last month of securities fraud: To convince federal Judge Jed Rakoff that he deserves minimal jail time.

There is a compelling public interest, after all, in keeping white-collar criminals on the street. The financial markets need liquidity, as any summer intern at a Washington lobbying firm can tell you, and we would be facing dark days if we lost our best talent at leaking confidential information. What good is a tipster in a place where high-frequency trading means swapping cigarettes for a batch of washed and folded laundry?

Sentencing is slated for October, and Gupta could be facing decades in prison. So his lawyers and a throng of big-name business friends have been portraying the former Goldman Sachs director as an honorable man who doesn't belong in jail. On the website friendsofrajat.com, a collection of supporters cite everything from Gupta's role as a founding board member of the Global Fund for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis to his selfless offer to pay for a friend's son to go to college.

You might wonder who'd care if a rich person found guilty of a crime has sprinkled a few crumbs among the little people -- and juries often wonder the same thing. Experts in selecting and analyzing juries say that jurors in mock trials and focus groups get turned off when there's too much talk about a defendant's good works. Philip K. Anthony, the director of jury consulting at DecisionQuest Inc. in Los Angeles, says jurors often mention that wealthy defendants derive benefits from their largesse, including tax write-offs and goodwill from business associates and the community.

Paul Neale, the chief executive of Doar Litigation Consulting -- the Lynbrook-based firm that worked on the Gupta case -- declined to comment on the trial. But he did say he has never seen philanthropy as a "definitive factor" in 23 years of mock trials that his firm has conducted.

Reality, though, can play out differently. Richard M. Scrushy, the former CEO of HealthSouth Corp., was acquitted by a jury in 2005 on charges he directed an accounting fraud. The Birmingham, Ala., community got a heavy dose of his pious side even during the trial. Scrushy delivered a lecture and donated $5,000 to a church attended by one of the jurors. He and his wife hosted a Bible show that aired five days a week on local TV during the months before the trial.

Even Rajaratnam benefited from hundreds of supportive letters to the court. Federal Judge Richard Holwell acknowledged Rajaratnam's "very significant dedication to others" at sentencing, giving him 11 years even though sentencing guidelines called for as much as 241/2.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt for Gupta to consider the example of Ronald Ferguson, the former CEO of General Reinsurance Corp. who faced a potential life sentence for helping American International Group deceive shareholders. Part of his pitch at sentencing was that he wanted to get back to his seminary education "and live my purpose to serve others." Though his conviction was reversed on appeal and then settled last month in advance of a retrial, U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney sentenced him to only two years back in 2008. "We will never know why such a good man did such a bad thing," Droney said. Ferguson's supporters flooded the court with 379 letters.

A seminary stint may not be in Gupta's future, but perhaps he could catch a break if he files an appeal and selects a new legal team with the magic touch.

In one of the most famous insider-trading cases of the late 1980s, Martin Siegel faced as much as 10 years in prison and a $260,000 fine. He had sold inside information in return for suitcases full of cash. Despite his crime, he spent only two months in prison, five years of probation, and received no fine.

It's a pity that Gupta won't have a shot at hiring the lawyer who shepherded Siegel to his propitious outcome. Siegel used Jed Rakoff -- the guy who'll decide what sentence suits Gupta's crimes.

Susan Antilla is the author of "Tales From the Boom-Boom Room."This is from Bloomberg View.