The Rajaratnam Verdict: The Power of Wiretaps

Its probably safe to say that for most people a conviction wasn't a huge surprise.  Its probably also safe to say that a conviction on all 14 counts was a surprise.  Without any question, some of the counts were much strong than others.  Moreover, some of witnesses had serious credibility issues.  Finally, not every count had incriminating tapes.  It was reasonable to expect some of them to result in an acquittal or at least a hung jury.

But the jury didn't and this demonstrates the power of the wiretaps in an unequivocal way.  A handful of the wiretaps were hard to get around (involving very specific types of non-public information) and probably allowed the jury to easily convict on some of the counts.  Once the jury determined that Rajaratnam engaged in insider trading on a few counts, they most likely didn't believe the denials on all of the others.  In other words, weak counts become stronger when there is solid wiretap evidence on even one of them.