Raj Rajaratnam to pay record $93 million in insider-trading case

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After receiving an 11-year prison sentence, Raj Rajaratnam is now getting the bill for his insider-trading misdeeds.

A judge today ordered the once-celebrated Wall Street financier, who was convicted in May of spearheading a massive insider-trading scheme, to pay a civil penalty of nearly $93 million. That comes on top of an earlier $10-million criminal fine and forfeiture of $53.8 million in ill-gotten gains.

Rajaratnam’s total tab: $156.6 million.

Both the prison sentence and the $92,805,705 civil penalty are the largest ever in an insider-trading case.

“The penalty imposed today reflects the historic proportions of Raj Rajaratnam’s illegal conduct and its impact on the integrity of our markets,” Robert Khuzami, enforcement chief at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said in a statement.

The SEC alleged that Rajaratnam and more than two dozen others who have been caught up in a massive illicit-trading dragnet garnered illicit profits (or avoided losses) of more than $90 million through improper trading in at least 15 publicly traded companies.

The one-time hedge-fund kingpin was found guilty May 11 of 14 counts, including nine for securities fraud and five for conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

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-- Walter Hamilton