The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. veteran aimed a deadpan stare at his friend on the witness stand and waited for the inevitable betrayal.
(Bloomberg) — The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. veteran aimed a deadpan stare at his friend on the witness stand and waited for the inevitable betrayal.
Yes, the witness said, he knew the defendant, and pointed to the former Goldman banker, a few yards away. He was his classmate, his groomsman, his squash partner and wingman – and the author of an insider-trading scheme that had now upended both of their lives.
Brijesh Goel, in a blue tie at the defense table, didn’t flinch. But by the time that testimony was over, the verdict was assured.
Guilty on all counts, the jury foreman pronounced Wednesday, in a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan. Goel, 38, was convicted on securities fraud, conspiracy and obstruction. His fate was likely sealed by the testimony of a single witness: his former close friend and fellow Wall Streeter, Akshay Niranjan, 34.
The trial that unfolded over seven days inside Courtroom 11D will never rank among America’s great legal actions. Instead, it will go down as a sad little Wall Street melodrama — the end of two promising careers and a yearslong friendship that seemed to propel two strivers from India since their business-school days in California.
The broad outlines of the case are these:
Goel, who was a vice president at Goldman Sachs, reviewed a stream of the firm’s confidential deal memos, often via his cell phone, and passed tips about corporate takeovers to Niranjan, a trader at Barclays Plc. Between them, prosecutors say, the pair made $280,000 trading on the inside info. On Wall Street, that kind of money is chump change.
When the feds finally came knocking, Niranjan got nervous and recorded his friend. He met with the FBI, cut a deal and agreed to wear a wire. The two friends met in a stairwell of the Frank Gehry-designed Financial District apartment building where they both lived. The FBI had turned up at Goel’s place, too, supposedly to ask about Niranjan. Goel took his pal’s phone and began furiously deleting one incriminating text after another.
Read More: Ex-Goldman VP Gave Drunk Squash Buddy Insider Tip, Jury Hears
And so, a little more than a year after that fateful day, Goel walked into the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse on June 12 with his freedom on the line. His lawyer would later call Niranjan a Judas, a Benedict Arnold — someone willing to lie and betray a friend to save himself.
In court, as in life, Goel and Niranjan were a study in contrasts. Starting at the University of California’s Haas School of Business, where they met a decade ago, Goel had always been the big brother in the relationship, smarter and more professional, even though they went to music festivals together, hung out with friends and, occasionally, got high together on psychedelics.
Now, despite his grim situation, Goel still struck a confident pose. Eyes front, his face almost expressionless, he watched the early proceeding unfold with bureaucratic efficiency.
The prosecution called initial witnesses: A Goldman Sachs executive, a Hindi translator (some of the men’s recorded conversations were in Hindi), an FBI agent.
Then, after lunch on June 14, the third day of the trial, prosecutors called their star witness: Niranjan. He’d cut a non-prosecution deal in return for testifying against Goel.
He seemed almost sorry for what he was about to do. In quiet tones, his words halting at times, he told the jury how he’d always looked up to Goel, who’d landed a job at the mighty Goldman Sachs. Goel wasn’t merely his friend, Niranjan told them. He was also his Wall Street mentor.
“We were very close,” Niranjan testified.
And, indeed, they were. From the prosecution came photos of Goel and Niranjan back in the good times. The images, by all appearances, offered time-capsule glimpses into the lives of two fun-loving friends.
Here they were at Tomorrowland, the music festival in Belgium. There they were at Niranjan’s wedding, a smiling Goel with his hand on his friend’s shoulder. Niranjan testified how they sometimes got high together on MDMA and psychedelic mushrooms.
Out, too, came internal Goldman memos, ones circulated about potential takeover targets by the bank’s Firmwide Capital Committee.
An Unusual Maneuver
Read More: Finance Bromance Ends With Pal Wearing a Wire in Insider Case
The jurors would look them over and learn how the men’s trades in some of those very companies seemed impossibly well-timed. The winnings were small beer on Wall Street: Niranjan, trading mostly options through an account in his brother’s name, pocketed $2,000 on his first one and $30,000 on his next.
Niranjan said he initially thought Goel was simply a brilliant stock-picker. Only later did he realize his friend was feeding him inside information.
“He got a lot of the trades too correct,” Niranjan said. The two used a mix of English, Hindi and personal code words to plot their trades.
From the defense table, Goel’s eyes burned into Niranjan. Goel propped his chin on his clenched first, waiting for his turn on the stand.
Two minor witnesses followed. Shortly before 4:30 p.m. last Friday, not long after the closing bell sounded on the New York Stock Exchange, the government rested its case. By that time, Niranjan had left the building, having fulfilled his obligation to the government.
Then, before the jury was dismissed for the weekend, Goel’s lawyers made a gutsy move. They called their own hoped-for star witness — the one person, other than Niranjan, who knew precisely what had gone down.
The defense called Brijesh Goel.
It was an unusual maneuver. Defendants in insider-trading cases rarely testify in court for fear of incriminating themselves.
Goel strode to the stand and raised his right hand.
‘I Panicked’
His voice was forceful. And his testimony was blunt: He swore he’d never shared confidential information with Niranjan or anyone else.
On it went Tuesday, after the long weekend. All those confidential emails he got at Goldman? He hardly ever read them, he said. Many of those messages were landing in his inbox by mistake after he’d moved on to another job at Goldman.
Goel seemed to have explanations for everything. Niranjan might’ve eavesdropped on his phone calls he said. Or maybe he’d scrolled through his emails while he was borrowing his phone to play music.
The two were so close, he said, they even shared passwords. At that, Goel teared up.
As for why he’d hurriedly deleted those texts in the stairwell, there was an answer for that too.
“I panicked,” Goel told the jury. “I thought he had done something stupid. And I thought because of his stupidity, he’s going to be in trouble, and I’m going to be in trouble too.”
Goel went on: “There was a lapse of judgment.”
Shortly after 4 p.m. Wednesday, as another Wall Street trading day was winding down, the jury delivered its verdict. Goel, facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, slumped at the defense table. Two lawyers put their arms around his shoulders. His friend wasn’t there for the end.
–With assistance from Teresa Xie.
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