Rajat Gupta starts prison term June 17

Rajat Gupta, India-born former director of Goldman Sachs Group, convicted in 2012 for insider trading, has agreed to surrender to prison authorities on June 17 to begin a two-year sentence.

US District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan directed Gupta, 65, who lost a bid for a new trial last month, to surrender by 2:00 p.m. on that date.

In an order made public Thursday Rakoff said that Gupta and prosecutors consented to the surrender date.

Gupta is the highest profile executive convicted since Manhattan's Indian-American US attorney Preet Bharara, nicknamed the "Sheriff of Wall Street" by Time magazine, began a crackdown on insider trading at hedge funds in 2007.

At Gupta's sentencing, Rakoff agreed to recommend that he serve his sentence at the federal prison in Otisville, New York. The Federal Bureau of Prisons is not required to follow the recommendation.

Gupta was convicted in June 2012 of passing confidential tips to billionaire hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, the co-founder of Galleon, about Berkshire Hathaway's $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the conviction on March 25, rejecting Gupta's claim that Rakoff improperly admitted wiretapped telephone conversations in which Gupta wasn't a participant.

Bharara's office has to date won convictions or secured guilty pleas against 80 people and four entities in its insider trading investigation.

Rajaratnam, who is serving an 11-year prison term, is appealing his own conviction to the US Supreme Court.