Mind Without Fear

by Rajat Gupta

  Seeing me struggling with feelings of depression and helplessness, Sonu suggested one day that I come to Boston for a few weeks and help her build a new playroom for my three-year-old twin granddaughters, Meera and Nisa. I willingly threw myself into the project, happy that it gave me extra time with the children, who were a beacon of sanity in those dark days. But never far from my mind was the fact that I might never get to play with those little girls in that new playroom. If I were sentenced to a long prison term, they could be teenagers before I got out.

  Those months were also a time for reflecting on my life through an unexpected lens. In corporate settings, we often conduct what’s known as a 360-degree feedback process, where people get the chance to see themselves through the eyes of their peers, their subordinates, and their supervisors. At McKinsey, this was something every partner did regularly. Now, I found myself in the midst of an extraordinary 360-degree review of my own life and legacy, thanks to hundreds of letters that were written to the judge by my friends, family, and colleagues.

  During the trial, thanks to Judge Rakoff’s “Mother Teresa” ruling, very few mentions were made of my philanthropic work, and the jury was instructed not to be swayed by my reputation. When it came to sentencing, however, it was quite a different story. Rakoff was permitted to take into account the “history and characteristics of the defendant.” So my lawyers encouraged me to solicit letters to the judge from my family, friends, and colleagues, attesting to my good character and contributions to society. I reached out to everyone I could think of, besides those in politics for whom it could be too sensitive. I could not possibly have anticipated the outpouring of response. Some volunteered before I had even asked, including Bill Gates and Miles White, CEO of Abbott, one of the leading pharma companies. Others, who felt unable to write for one reason or another, called me personally to explain and express their support, including President Clinton and Larry Summers.

  One letter that particularly touched me came from Peter Dolan, former CEO of Bristol Myers-Squibb, who I’d served at McKinsey. When he abruptly exited the CEO role, he recalled in the letter, he could count on one hand the number of senior people in business who reached out to him, but I was one of them. All these years later, that gesture meant so much to him that he’d been one of the first to reach out to me when news of the case broke and I too found myself deserted by many former friends. Another letter that moved and humbled me was one of the longest—five full pages penned by an eighty-plus-year-old man, K.P. Singh, India’s largest real estate developer, detailing our many humanitarian efforts together and the ways in which I had inspired him.

  As I read these letters, I felt both embarrassed and reassured, and, above all, enormously grateful. Whatever fate had in store for me, I’d already had so many opportunities to do good in the world, and so many people were testifying that their lives were better as a result. Thanks to the work of organizations like the Global Fund, hundreds of thousands—perhaps even millions—of lives had been saved. Judge Rakoff had mocked me in the courtroom, joking that malaria still existed, so therefore my work could not have been successful. But the truth was, as I’d always said, if even one life was saved as a result of my work, I would feel I had lived a life worth living. This was what mattered—that I’d done my best. It was a poignant experience to review my life and legacy in this way, when so much of it had now been compromised, but I was grateful.

  My family’s letters, in particular, were bittersweet. My daughters shared favorite memories that brought a smile to my face. Early morning math coaching with Sonu, for which she rightly guessed I had gotten up even earlier than her in order to refresh my rusty memory on the rules of trigonometry. Endless card games with Kushy. Supervising their chores (“Yes, it is possible to have a Plan of Action for cleaning one’s room,” Megha joked, noting that my daughters’ adulthood “has not diminished his belief that he is the best person to tackle any obstacle, major or minor, that comes our way.”). Comforting Aditi and helping her to rearrange her apartment so it would feel like her own again after a boyfriend moved out.

  I felt immense pride at their eloquence, even as I was embarrassed by their descriptions of my values and virtues, and the way in which I’d been a role model in their lives. They also saw, perhaps more clearly than anyone, that the very same character traits that had made me successful and respected were also the weaknesses that had left me vulnerable to my fate.

  “He can seem at times to have a naïve belief in people,” Sonu wrote, “which is why, I think, he has been so successful in his career and in his philanthropic work.” What she did not write, but I knew she knew, is that it was that very same belief that had left me blind to the duplicity of the colleagues who had betrayed me. Anita spoke to this too. “He could never imagine that his friends or business associates could be involved in unlawful activities,” she wrote. “Rajat has always trusted people and seen only the good in them. I am much more cynical or just more realistic about people and motives and have tried in vain to moderate his ‘great guy’ and ‘good friend’ descriptions.”

  She bemoaned my tendency to give money to “everybody with a hard luck story” and recalled our financial advisor’s dismay at some of my well-meaning investments in friends’ and family’s businesses. Anita was also honest about my overcommitment: “I tried often to get him to slow down but there was always one more organization or one more group of people who needed help,” she wrote. “Rajat Gupta never learned to say no.” She was right. And though she didn’t say it, I knew she knew that my inability to say no had left me stretched too thin, unable to deal with issues like the Voyager affair in a timely manner. Had I brought that to a head sooner, would any of this have happened? Or would Raj and I have parted ways before any of those calls took place? If I had taken Anita’s advice and gracefully embraced retirement, never gotten into business with Raj, or stood firm in my resignation to Goldman, there’s no doubt our lives would have taken a completely different course. “I try very hard, Your Honor, to emulate my husband,” Anita had written, but I was left feeling that I should have been the one emulating her.

  As each of my loved ones expressed to the judge their fear and sadness at the thought of losing me to imprisonment, my eyes overflowed with tears. I could not help but think back to the years of busyness and ask myself, over and over, had I missed precious opportunities to be with my family—the family I might now be parted from for years?

  “Must Not One Judge the Man as a Whole?”

  The day of the sentencing, October 24, fell just two days short of the anniversary of my arrest. Diwali was later that year, but it turned out that the hearing coincided with another Hindu festival, Dussehra, which celebrates the triumph of the god Rama over the ten-headed demon king Ravana, who abducted his wife. The symbolic meaning of the festival is the victory of good over evil. I don’t know if Bharara had any role in scheduling, but I wondered if he found some satisfaction in it nonetheless.

  Stepping into that all-too-familiar dark, wood-paneled courtroom, all the feelings of the trial flooded back—the frustration, the helplessness, the tormented indecision, the instant regret, the worry, the disbelief, the moments of hope, and the eventual despair. The past few months, it had begun to feel like a bad dream; now it became my reality once again. This room had been the page on which my story had been rewritten, and the law gave its stamp of approval to a false narrative. Now, Judge Rakoff would add another chapter to this tale, and I would be forced to live it. Was I to spend the next decade of my life behind bars, as the government was recommending, or would he set a “noncustodial sentence,” as my lawyers had proposed, consisting of community service in some needy part of the world, such as Rwanda. My experience of Rakoff up to this point did not give me much hope that the saga would have a happy ending.

  Judge Rakoff surprised me, however. Addressing the packed courtroom, he acknowledged that the volume and nature of correspondence he had received was unprecedented in his judicial experience. �
��The Court can say without exaggeration that it has never encountered a defendant whose prior history suggests such an extraordinary devotion, not only to humanity writ large, but also to individual human beings in their times of need,” he declared.

  It was incongruous to hear those words coming from the mouth of the same judge who had ruled against me, again and again, just a few months earlier. “On this day of judgment,” he asked rhetorically, “must not one judge the man as a whole?” And yet that was precisely what he had refused to allow the jury to do at the trial. Yes, I understood that the rules governing sentencing were different than those governing evidence in a jury trial. But this change of tone seemed like more than that. Was Rakoff acknowledging, in some small way, the unfairness of the “cropped picture” to which I’d been reduced in his courtroom? Was he hinting that in his attempts to protect the impartiality of the process, he might have gone too far?

  The letters certainly filled out that picture. The total number topped four hundred, and their authors ranged from luminaries like Bill Gates and Kofi Annan to ordinary people like my long-time barber, my personal trainer, and even my uncle’s household servant in India, who had known me for four decades and took the time to pen a handwritten letter. Dozens of business colleagues and clients from every phase of my life had written, as well as classmates from every school I’d attended, extended family, friends, fellow humanitarians, school friends of my daughters, even Aman Kumar, son of my colleague-turned-government-collaborator Anil Kumar, who considered me an honorary “uncle.” I was particularly touched by how many McKinsey partners wrote letters of support, despite the fact that (as I’d heard through the grapevine) the firm had discouraged people from doing so.

  The attention given to my charitable works was not the only novelty in Rakoff’s courtroom that day. After sitting in silence through the four weeks of the trial, the sentencing hearing was the first time my voice would be heard. My lawyers had advised me that I would have an opportunity to address the judge, and I had decided to take it. Preparing my statement had been a challenge, however, since I could not bring myself to express contrition or apologize for crimes I had not committed, no matter what the verdict said. It was important, however, that I not appear to be challenging the verdict, since that would hardly be likely to sway the judge in my favor. Draft after draft, I struggled to find an authentic expression. In the end, I made a list of all the things I did feel sorry for.

  Most important was the impact on my family and friends. It took no pretense to express my regret and pain at the suffering I had caused them. Just thinking about Anita’s helpless rage and my daughters’ brave efforts to be strong for me brought tears to my eyes. Their happiness meant more to me than anything else, and the devastation they had endured cut the deepest. I felt that over the past few years I had failed in what I considered my most important mission in life: to be a source of strength for them. Aditi had spoken to this in her letter:

  “When I find myself now worrying about what it would be like to lose my father to a prison sentence, the truth of the matter is that much of what I depended on I have lost already. When I see my father quiet or stressed the last thing I feel I can do is ask him for help or advice. Knowing that his greatest priority is for me to be happy, I hesitate to ever tell him that I’m not. These lies of omission have escalated over time, as I’ve waited for a ‘better time’ to burden him with my problems, and that ‘better time’ has not come.” In closing, she acknowledged to the judge that many people were focused on the good work I could continue to do in the world, but her appeal was of a different nature. “I ask you for leniency for selfish reasons. I depend on my father. My relationship with him has already changed drastically, and I cannot bear the thought of losing any more of him.” Recalling her words, I knew I could speak wholeheartedly to my pain and regret in that regard.

  I could also say, unreservedly, that I felt terrible about the burden of negative attention that I had brought to the institutions that were dear to me, including McKinsey and the many nonprofits I advised. In particular, the organizations I’d founded—ISB, PHFI, and AIF—which were like children to me.

  As for the verdict, I could not say that I accepted it, since I knew it to represent an untruth. But I believed in destiny, and I knew that in those moments when we cannot see the reasoning behind the whims of fate, acceptance is a virtue. The great sages of my Indian heritage had cultivated equanimity and detachment in the face of life’s challenges, and I strove to emulate them by accepting what had happened to me with as much grace as I could muster.

  It felt strange to speak aloud in that courtroom. I took a deep breath, looked the judge in the eye, and began: “The last eighteen months have been the most challenging period of my life since I lost my parents as a teenager.”

  This was no exaggeration. Since my parents’ death, I would be the first to admit I had led a charmed life, facing few significant setbacks or obstacles. But now, I felt almost as destitute as the days on which I cremated my father and my mother. I expressed my authentic regrets with as much dignity as I could muster. I told the judge that I accepted what had happened, I was grateful to my family and friends, and I sought their forgiveness. That was my truth and it was all I could say at this juncture. It was too late for the testimony I could have given.

  The matter of my sentencing was a complex one, since insider trading sentences are usually related to the financial gains (or avoided losses) of the defendant, which in my case were zero. In the end, Rakoff, who was well known for bypassing sentencing guidelines in favor of his own calculations, accepted neither the government’s proposal nor my lawyers’.

  “Human beings in their interactions with society are too complicated to be treated like commodities, and the attempt to do so can only lead to bizarre results. Nowhere is this more obvious than in this very case,” he declared. Furthermore, he acknowledged, “Mr. Gupta’s personal history and characteristics starkly contrast with the nature and circumstances of his crimes.”

  Again, I was surprised by the change in the judge’s tone. I looked across at Gary, who was nodding, no doubt relieved that Judge Rakoff seemed to finally be showing the independent-mindedness and keen discernment for which he was so revered. However, the judge’s apparent change of heart only went so far. The suggestion that I be sentenced to community service, he argued, would not act as sufficient deterrent. “While no defendant should be made a martyr to public passion,” he reasoned, “meaningful punishment is still necessary to reaffirm society’s deep-seated need to see justice triumphant.”

  In the end, Judge Rakoff sentenced me to only two years’ imprisonment, followed by a year’s supervised release. Compared to what it could have been, I guess it was a fairly lenient sentence, although it was considerably weighted down when he added enormous monetary fines. It simply made no sense to me that I should be financially penalized based on profits made by Galleon and losses Galleon avoided, when I never benefited in any way from those revenues. On top of this, the SEC would add its own even bigger fines, bringing the total to almost $20 million. I was ordered to surrender to prison on January 8, 2013, giving me only weeks to get my affairs in order.

  Appeal

  I was in a fighting mood after the sentencing. Yes, I felt I’d finally been seen and considered more fully. But this only served to heighten the injustice of the verdict. We had asked for bail pending appeal, but Rakoff denied this, so we appealed that ruling and won. With Sonu’s help I exhaustively researched the best appeal lawyers, eventually hiring Seth Waxman, one of the top attorneys in the country. We filed the appeal immediately following the sentencing, arguing that the court in my trial had abused its discretion and requesting a new trial.

  For the next two years, I swung between despair about what loomed in my future and gratitude to at least have this time with my loved ones. The appeal process was slow and cumbersome. Our case was heard in May 2013 by the Federal Appeals Court, and almost a year later, in March 2014, it was reject
ed. The appeals court insisted there was “ample evidence” of my involvement in a conspiracy and ruled that there had been no irregularity in the way the trial was conducted.

  Anita and I were in Florida when I got the news. It was a beautiful day, and as I sat looking out over the blue-green Gulf waters, it was hard to fathom that before long I would be behind bars. How much time did I have? I called the lawyers, and they said that I could suggest a date and typically the judge would be accommodating. On the one hand, I saw no reason to wait long—the sooner it got started, the sooner it would be over. But on the other hand, there were some things I wanted to do: most importantly, spend time with my girls. I requested three months, and it was granted.

  I decided that I would take each of my daughters on a father–daughter trip of their choosing. Sonu and I took the kids for a riotous week at Disneyland. Megha and I took a road trip to the beautiful Acadia National Park in Maine and ate lobster by the ocean. Aditi led me on a gastronomical tour of upstate New York, hiking during the days and fine dining at night. Kushy planned the most extensive trip. We flew to Vegas, saw a show, and then set out on a ten-day tour of the majestic landscapes of Arizona and Utah: the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, and everything in between. We ended with a rafting adventure on the Colorado River, during which I foolishly insisted on keeping my phone in a pocket of my wet jacket and lost all the many photographs I’d taken to capture this special time. Nevertheless, it is imprinted in my memory as one of the happiest times of my life. Of all my daughters, Kushy had been most distressed by the trial, and it was such a relief to see her laughing and joyful again.