Galleon Founder Slapped With $92.8M Civil Penalty

Galleon Group hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam has broken another record. The former billionaire, who received the longest-ever prison sentence for insider trading last month, has been ordered to pay the largest-ever Securities and Exchange Commission civil penalty for insider trading, reports the New York Times. The $92.8 million penalty, combined with the fines and forfeitures ordered last month, means Rajaratnam will have to pay a total of $156.6 million.

The judge said the huge penalty was appropriate because it sends the message that insider trading should be a "money-losing proposition," and because Rajaratnam's fortune considerably exceeds the earlier fines. "When to this is added the huge and brazen nature of Rajaratnam's insider trading scheme, which, even by his own estimate, netted tens of millions of dollars and continued for years, this case cries out for the kind of civil penalty that will deprive this defendant of a material part of his fortune," the judge said. (More Raj Rajaratnam stories.)