Wall Street tycoon driven by greed: prosecutors

Sri Lankan-born Rajaratnam, 53, used insider information at his Galleon Group fund to pocket at least $45 million, prosecutors alleged after an investigation making extensive use of wiretaps.

"He exploited a corrupt network of people to gain access to secret corporate information," said prosecutor Jonathan Streeter. "One critical thing he did not know: he did not know that the FBI was listening to him."

Streeter said it was a case about "greed" with Rajaratnam "using stolen information to make tens of millions of dollars."

Rajaratnam, who is free on $100 million bail, says he is not guilty.

Media reports say Rajaratnam could take the highly unusual move of testifying in his own defense, rather than let his legal team do all the talking in a trial expected to hear testimony from a Who's Who of Wall Street figures -- including Goldman Sachs head Lloyd Blankfein.

There were gasps from around the courtroom Tuesday at the start of jury selection when Judge Richard Holwell warned the trial could run two and a half months.

He said the marathon trial would feature "a lot of evidence with a lot of big money attached to it."

But Holwell cautioned that "this case does not have anything to do with the recession or whether anyone is to blame for the recession. This case concerns only the specific charges that have been made against Mr Rajaratnam."

Rajaratnam is likely to face up to 25 years in prison if convicted on all 14 counts. Technically, the judge could decide to run the sentences consecutively, resulting in a term adding up to no less than 205 years.

He could also face $100 million in fines on transactions that occurred between 2003 and 2009.

The federal prosecutor in New York described the case as "the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history" and the biggest insider trading case since the 1980s, media reports say.

Rajaratnam's Galleon Group managed $3.7 billion in funds before his arrest in late 2009. He was ranked by Forbes magazine in that year as the 559th wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated $1.3 billion.

Rajaratnam ordered Galleon wound down after his arrest and has said that his former clients lost little money.

Prosecutors have brought conspiracy and securities fraud charges alleging that Rajaratnam used confidential information to profit from trades involving public companies, including Hilton, Google, Clearwire and Akamai.