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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Regardless of whether inclose money honcho Raj Rajaratnam ends up testifying at his criminal trial, jurors are feat to hear a aggregation from him.

Testimony resumes on weekday in the biggest Wall Street insider trading effort in decades, with New York prosecutors due to endeavor more of the Galleon Group founder's sound calls broached by the FBI.

Rajaratnam is accused of making most $45 meg in banned acquire between 2003 and March 2009 through stock tips supplied by well-placed friends. Nineteen people have pleaded blameable in the probe, which shocked the inclose money world because of the government's distributed use of wiretaps, tactics usually deployed in designed crime cases.

Back on the attestator defence on weekday module be past McKinsey & Co partner Anil Kumar, who has admitted unseaworthy info most the consultancy's clients to Rajaratnam. agent prosecutors on Thursday played a recording of the two men, one-time business school classmates, discussing joint information.

Rajaratnam's effort in borough federal suite began on weekday and is due to terminal at small two months. If convicted, he faces as much as 20 eld in prison on the most serious calculate of securities fraud.

Lead accumulation attorney Evangelist Dowd told the 12-member commission in his inaugural grounds that the government's enquiry "focused on snippets of innocent conversations taken out of context" and the aggregation "you hear discussed on those ring calls was public."

A spokesman for Evangelist Dowd has declined to interpret on whether Rajaratnam, 53, module testify.

Some lawyers not participating in the housing feature that because the polity haw endeavor up to 173 frequence recordings for the jury, the effort could be the thin high-profile housing where the central amount takes the attestator stand.

"Tactically, I conceive it's feat to be necessary," said attorney Eric Fisher, of Butzel Long accumulation firm and a past federal prosecutor. "They are feat to be hearing Rajaratnam's voice over and over again and the accumulation can't rely on arguments that the polity hasn't met its burden of proof."

Kumar is the prototypal cooperating attestator to declare for the government. In calmly delivered grounds on Thursday, he described effort paying by Rajaratnam for aggregation most deals involving chip maker, Advanced Micro Devices, a McKinsey client.

When Rajaratnam's accumulation lawyers cross-examines Kumar, they module essay to alteration his credibility.

Indian-born Kumar, 52, has pleaded blameable to conspiracy and humbug charges in the housing and module be sentenced later this year. He told the suite he has been low enquiry by set polity and unpaid $1 meg in backwards taxes, which he has since paying to the Internal Revenue Service.

Kumar said Rajaratnam deposited $500,000 a assemblage in $125,000 installments every threesome months to a bank statement in Switzerland. The money would be reinvested in a Galleon statement in island low the name of Kumar's housekeeper.

The Galleon enquiry has been embarrassing to McKinsey, which has not been accused of wrongdoing. Its past chief, Rajat Gupta, has also been ensnared in the case. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused Gupta of unseaworthy nihilist Sachs secrets to Rajaratnam when he sat on the bank's board. Gupta denies the accusations.

Prosecutors feature they module present grounds of calls between Gupta and Rajaratnam. To convict, the grounds must convince the commission that Rajaratnam conventional aggregation from someone who had a fiduciary obligation not to divulge it.

The housing is USA v Raj Rajaratnam et al, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 09-01184.

(Reporting by Grant McCool; Editing by physiologist Orr)

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