Rajat Gupta’s been in prison for a little under nine months now and do you know what? It’s not to his taste. Even though he thinks he never should have been there in the first place, he thinks we can all agree that he’s given it a fair shake, done the research and some proper McKinsey-type due diligence, and in the final analysis, it’s time to let him go home to Greenwich. Also, from what he hears on the yard, insider-trading’s not a crime anymore.

Now serving a two-year prison sentence for insider trading, Gupta claimed the government didn't show he got a personal benefit for passing tips to billionaire friend Raj Rajaratnam. Prosecutors must prove that element, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York ruled in December, in a blow to a series of cases won by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara….

Jurors convicted “Gupta without finding that his tips were part of an agreed-upon exchange of tips for consequential benefits,” defense lawyer Gary Naftalis said Thursday in a filing seeking to have the conviction tossed out and Gupta freed from prison.

Unfortunately for Rajat, whose still got a hair over a year to serve before his scheduled release date, his case looks an awful lot like that of former Foundry Networks chief information officer David Riley, who was convicted of passing some tips on to his hedge-fund manager buddy Matt Teeple. In fact, if you simply change “David Riley” to “Rajat Gupta,” “Foundry Networks CIO” to “Goldman Sachs director,” and “Matt Teeple” to “Raj Rajaratnam,” it’s pretty much the same the story. And David Riley’s still going to jail, although that news may not have reached the minimum-security prison camp in Ayer, Mass.

Ex-Goldman Director Gupta Says Conviction Should Be Tossed [Bloomberg]