“His crimes reflect a virus in our business
culture that needs to be
eradicated.”
— Federal District Court judge Richard J. Holwell,
on Raj Rajaratnam, the culprit behind the federal
government’s biggest-ever insider trading
conviction.
$75M
Amount of money
Raj Rajaratnam
earned through
insider trading
11
Number years
Rajaratnam will
spend in prison
$6.818 M
How much
Rajaratnam’s made
for each year he
got in prison
1987
Year when new
sentencing
guidelines went
into effect for
white-collar crimes,
pegging prison
time to amount
of money illegally
earned
$5,244/hour
How much he
would have to
make in prison
to pay that all
back, based on
a 20-hour work
week
$0.95/hour
Average maximum
hourly wage paid
to prisoners,
nationwide
$0.19/hour
Average minimum
hourly wage paid
to prisoners for
non-industry work
216,294
Number of years
it would take
Rajaratnam to pay
off his $75 million
working at the
average minimum
hourly rate paid to
prisoners
Sources: The Prison Index:
Taking the Pulse of the Crime
Control Industry (2003), North
Carolina Department of
Corrections
