John Crudele
Let the games begin!
A sometimes testy, sometimes playful judge sparred with defense lawyers yesterday in the insider-trading trial of former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta.
If you just saw the highlight reel of yesterday’s four-hour session that featured the testimony of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein you would be under the mistaken impression that this was interesting stuff.
It wasn’t — unless you are tired of Judge Judy and her half-hour brand of justice and can’t get enough of long-form jurisprudence.
The case in Manhattan federal court involves charges that Gupta passed secret information to his pal, Raj Rajaratnam, a hedgie who then profited from what he had been told.
Lloyd Blankfein entering court yesterday." title="HELLO AGAIN: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein entering court yesterday." width="300" height="300" src="/rw/nypost/2012/06/08/business/web_photos/lloyd_blankfein--300x300.jpg" />
Reuters
HELLO AGAIN: Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein entering court yesterday.
Rajaratnam has already been convicted.
Now it’s Gupta’s turn. His trial has gone on for several weeks before an increasingly frustrated Judge Jed Rakoff and a jury that has gone from nearly catatonic to ready for outright embalming.
Rakoff let prosecutors and the defense team have it before Blankfein took the stand yesterday. The judge wanted Blankfein’s testimony to end yesterday — but the Goldman CEO will be back for a third session this morning.
“I’m not happy about this, obviously,” the judge complained to both the defense and prosecution.
Blankfein’s testimony started Monday. Court wasn’t in session on Tuesday and Blankfein couldn’t make it on Wednesday because his kid was graduating from high school.
So it came down to yesterday. Rakoff was so anxious to get things going that on a few occasions he started questioning witnesses himself, leaving the lawyers with their jaws hanging.
Defense lawyer Gary Naftalis had barely started his cross examination of Blankfein, who repeated again and again that Gupta, as a Goldman director, would have been given privileged, confidential information that he wasn’t supposed to blab.
Now that you are up to date on the ordinary stuff, let’s dish.
Right before the cross examination began yesterday afternoon, prosecutor Reed Brodsky asked if Gupta’s defense team planned to bring up any current investigations of Goldman Sachs.
The idea, I guess, is that Goldman isn’t pure and shouldn’t expect its directors to be, either.
Naftalis obviously didn’t want to tip his hand.
This, of course, could be the highlight of the trial and end up being No. 1 on the Top 10 legal plays of the day. For everybody in the courtroom — journalists like me included — there is nothing better than a list of all the probes of the most vilified firm on Wall Street.
Investigations of Goldman are, on the other hand, the last thing the government wants revealed.
Heckling didn’t just come from the judge yesterday. Brodsky and Naftalis were going at each other pretty good in what they assumed to be a private interchange.
Sometimes it sounded as if the courtroom staff had forgotten to turn off the microphones at the lawyers’ tables. Folks heard Naftalis complain to his co-counsel that prosecutors were trying to get a “tactical advantage” by putting an FBI agent on the stand yesterday morning and pushing Blankfein to the afternoon.
And one prosecutor had his own gripes about late-night sessions. “I’m totally exhausted. I got a baby waking me up at 5 a.m.,” he said.
john.crudele@nypost.com
Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, Raj Rajaratnam, Judge Judy, Jed Rakoff, defense lawyers, Blankfein
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