Rajaratnam, Raj - Prison Path Has Been Traveled...
Walter Pavlo - Oct 17, 2011
Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of the Galleon Group, was ordered to spend 11 years (132 months) in prison after being found guilty of charges related to insider trading. There are not many high profile, Ivy League (Wharton MBA), businessmen, with a good family who get an 11-year hit … but it has happened and Raj would be well served to hear from someone like that.
Mark Whitacre, whose case was written about in three books (The Informant,Rats in the Grain, and the newest book, Mark Whitacre Against all Odds) is such a person. Mark was also portrayed on the big screen in the 2009 feature film, The Informant, starring Matt Damon. Whitacre holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Cornell University, was a top executive (Division President) at ArcherDaniels Midland (ADM), and has a wonderful wife and 3 kids. He was also an informant for the FBI in the largest price-fixing scandal in the history of the United States. He was a hero, until he also crossed the line and was caught in an embezzlement scheme while working undercover for the feds. Talk about having the world turn against you. In the end, he was sentenced to 128 months in prison (only 4 less than Raj), ordered to report to the Bureau of Prison’s medical facility in Butner, NC and began a life behind bars….sounds a little familiar.
I spoke with Whitacre about Rajaratnam’s case and penalty to gain insights into what could be expected. Whitacre, who has been out of prison for 5 years now, reflected back on his time in prison.
“It may seem odd, but my life started to get better quickly AFTER I reported to prison,”Whitacre told me. “No more media camping outside our home for weeks on end, people looking at me when I went out, or phone calls asking for interviews.”
Whitacre reported to the medical facility in Butner, NC for a psychological evaluation as a precaution since he had an unsuccessful attempt at suicide prior to reporting to prison. After being there a short while, he was transferred to Yazoo City, MS to a low security federal prison, and within a few months, he was transferred to a minimum security camp in Edgefield, SC.
“Having a sentence as long as mine, I couldn’t keep track of time by days or even months, I went by Christmas holidays that I would be away from my family; eight,” he said. Whitacre had times over his nearly 9 years of incarceration that held promise of an earlier release. There were many within the justice department and the FBI who thought Whitacre’s punishment was too harsh and too lengthy, so they initiated a process to gain a Presidential Pardon. His best chance came when Clinton was leaving office and rumors swirled about a large number of pardons to be issued….Whitacre was on the list. However, January 2001 came and went leaving tax fugitive Marc Rich a free man, but Whitacre behind bars. “Even though I was disappointed, the process gave me hope each year, and in prison, hope is a good thing.”
Mark Whitacre is a thoughtful person these days, often speaking about his Christian faith, his wife, Ginger, and his 3 children, who are all now grown.
“My biggest fear of entering prison was what would the impact be on my family? How would they go on without me, and would they go on without me,” Whitacre said knowing that the divorce rate for people in prison, as you would imagine, is very high. “I had been with Ginger since high school and there I was in 1998, 41 years-old, and going to prison for a decade. I felt then that the future looked bleak.”
Whitacre’s other fear was the impact this was going to have on his career. A scientist with business acumen, Whitacre understood the fast pace of change in technology and worried that his skills would be worthless after a decade of incarceration. “I kept busy right from the start. First, I taught various GED classes to inmates and helped them write letters, give them advice, and helped them think through difficult situations. It was very rewarding.” Whitacre said of his time behind bars. But he also found time for himself, earning three more advanced degrees: an advanced law degree (LL.M.), a Ph.D. in Psychology and a Ph.D.in Economics.
After Whitacre’s release, he was quickly hired back to his roots in biotech at Cypress Systems, Inc, a Californian biotechnology company, where he is COO.
Whitacre was also concerned about the people he had hurt in his crime, specifically, the FBI team he had worked with and who had trusted him. “I was sure they would never forgive me for what I did. It took some time, but in the year 2000 the FBI started visiting me in prison. It has been a very rewarding experience for me to not only apologize but to show them that I am a better person than I was back the early 1990s. I was even a guest speaker at the Quantico FBI Academy this year.”
I asked about his celebrity status among the other inmates and how that affected his life behind bars. Whitacre’s case, like Raj’s, was covered extensively in the press and landed him on the cover of Business Week magazine, among many others. “I was not treated any differently among the prison population but a number of people knew about my case through the years. I hung out with doctors, lawyers, executives, bank robbers and drug dealers, and as long as they could acknowledge that they had screwed-up to end up behind bars, then we got along fine. There is nothing worse than talking to someone in prison who doesn’t think they belong there. There are some like that, but it is a small and lonely group.”
Whitacre spent almost all of his prison time in minimum-security camps and was released in 2006 to a halfway house after serving 8 and half years in prison. He acknowledged that today’s sentences are tough. “I know a lot of people, like those at the FBI, forgave me and tried to help me obtain early release from prison. However, I feel that I got what I deserved. The prison sentences that I see today are too tough and it hits me hard when I know they have a family that they are leaving behind.”
As Mark and I spoke, he would ask me questions about Rajaratnam and his family….whether he was married, how old were his kids, how long had he been married. It was not difficult to assess that he was reliving his own path to prison as he spoke.
“We are doing great today. I missed my entire 40’s in prison and got out when I was 49. I feel very fortunate.” Whitacre is still married (32 years) and speaks about his visits with his wife in prison. “She never missed a visitation weekend with me in prison over the entire time. We often joke that she did as much time in prison (visiting) as some of the inmates I knew.”
“I would do anything for a do-over. But that is not possible. However, I’m very blessed to have a second chance with my wife and children, the FBI agents whom I worked with, and my career in biotech. I do not take any of that for granted. Our goal was to get BETTER, not bitter”, Whitacre told me as we completed our discussion.
Had it just been the SEC that had charged Rajaratnam and not Federal Prosecutors, his story may have never made the headlines. But the potential of a 24-year prison sentence for a billionaire businessman became like a bad car wreck on the side of the road at rush hour….we had to see the tragedy. With the sentence now known, we can all go back to our lives and let Rajaratnam begin to see that life may not be over for him….it only seems like it.
Special thanks to my good friend Mark Whitacre for giving me his time to reflect on his life and in the process pass along some advice to someone who sorely needs some right now. More information about Mark can be found at his website: www.markwhitacre.com .
http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/2011/10/17/rajaratnam-prison-path-has-been-traveled-before/