Rajaratnam Defense Lawyer Tells CNBC in No Uncertain Terms What He Thinks of the Network
The lawyer for Galleon hedge-fund founder Raj Rajaratnam wasn’t happy when CNBC sought his comment after the guilty verdict against his client on Wednesday.
“Get the [bleep] out of here,” said John Dowd of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. The network video blurs his raised hand, and then he declares, “That’s what I got for CNBC.”
Federal jurors in Manhattan convicted Rajaratnam of all counts on Wednesday in the largest insider trading case to date involving hedge funds. The conviction points the way toward an aggressive new era in white-collar prosecutions on Wall Street. Dowd gave a brief statement to reporters after the verdict, saying, “We’ll see you in the 2nd Circuit.” Experts told Reuters that an appeal is likely to focus on admissibility of wiretap evidence, but success is a longshot.
Dowd, 70, is known for relishing a fight, but his trial days are over, he told CNBC after the first day of closing arguments. “It’s a young man’s game,” he said.
The flipoff on Wednesday is not the first time Dowd has expressed his disdain for the reporters covering the trial, according to the Business Insider. A spokesperson denies a Business Insider report that Dowd told one journalist, “I hate you, I’m not telling you a thing.” Another report in April says Dowd flipped off a CNBC cameraman who complained that Rajaratnam’s driver had touched his camera lens.
In a March article, the Wall Street Journal called Dowd “a former military lawyer known for being willing to mix it up with legal foes.” In his last major criminal trial in 1997 representing Arizona Gov. Fife Symington on bank fraud charges, Dowd reportedly shouted at prosecutors and “lost his cool” during a pretrial meeting, the story says. One of the prosecutors on that case, David Schindler, told the newspaper that Dowd “does not broach disagreement kindly.” A spokesman for Dowd denied the report.
