Ex-Gates Adviser Sentenced to 2 Years for Insider Trading

Rajat Gupta, a former Goldman Sachs executive and adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates’ and the William J. Clinton’s foundations, was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for passing sensitive stock information to a business partner, according to Bloomberg and The New York Times.

Mr. Gupta was convicted in June of tipping off hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, with whom he founded a private-equity firm, about a major deal involving Goldman in 2008. Federal District Judge Jed Rakoff also ordered Mr. Gupta to pay a $5-million fine.

Mr. Gupta, who also led consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in what had been a glittering Wall Street career, was active in humanitarian circles, chairing a panel that advised the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on international development and working in efforts to battle AIDS, malaria, and other diseases in poor nations.

Hundreds of supporters and former colleagues who sent letters to the court urging a lenient sentence, citing Mr. Gupta’s charity work, and his attorney, Gary Naftalis, suggested he be sentenced to community work in New York or a developing country rather than being jailed.

“I think the record, which the government really doesn’t dispute, is that he’s a good man,” Judge Rakoff responded, “but the history of this country and the history of the world are filled with good men who do bad things, so I don’t think that’s the end of the subject.”