Rajat Gupta released early after 19 months in prison

Washington: Rajat Gupta, Former Indian-American Director of Goldman Sachs Group was released early after being in federal prison for 19 months, but according to media he will have to stay in house arrest till March.

Gupta, convicted in June 2012 for leaking tips to hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam, was released on January 5 from Federal Medical Centre Devens, a federal correctional facility in Ayer, Massachusetts, 64 km from Boston.

But even after release from Devens, he will remain a federal inmate until March 13, confined to his apartment in Manhattan's Century building in New York and required to wear an ankle bracelet that monitors his movements, according to the New York Times.

Gupta, who began a two-year sentence for securities fraud a year and a half ago, applied last year to corrections officers for an early discharge from Devens.

Under the Second Chance Act, the Bureau of Prisons is authorised to send an inmate to what is called community confinement for re-entry purposes, the Times said.

Under the rules governing home confinement, Gupta can go to work, visit a doctor's office or attend religious services, Joel Sickler, the founder of the Justice Advocacy Group, a company that advises inmates on prison stays, was quoted as saying.

"With permission, you can go shopping or get a haircut," he said.

When Gupta was assigned to Devens, he was sent to the facility's minimum security camp which houses 124 inmates, the Times said.

The camp is separate from the main prison where Rajaratnam is serving an 11-year sentence for insider trading. Inmates in the camp do not come in contact with prisoners in the main compound.

But last summer, Gupta, 67, was transferred to the main compound, which houses 1,046 inmates and offers medical facilities.

In April 2015, he was sent to the prison's Special Housing Unit for having an unauthorized item an extra pillow.

Gupta had grabbed the extra pillow, as many inmates do, to help ease a bad back. "Rajat ended up finding the medical centre more to his liking than the camp," Sickler was quoted as saying.

"They didn't nitpick so much." He was also afforded a greater degree of privacy in the main compound, where inmates are housed in cells, rather than in open barracks.(IANS)(image:dealbreaker.com)