Defense lawyers for Rajat Gupta want a federal judge to issue a lenient sentence of probation and community service helping Rwanda improve its services for HIV and other social needs instead of a prison sentence of up to 10 years for insider trading, The New York Times reports. He has more than 400 letters of support from prominent individuals such as Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist, and Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general. The former Goldman Sachs director was convicted of leaking secrets about the company to Raj Rajaratnam, a hedge fund manager. Gupta, also the former head of the consulting firm McKinsey & Company, was swept up in an insider-trading crackdown of 69 influential individuals.

UPDATE: A judge rejected a sentence of community service, instead giving Gupta two years in prison and ordering him to pay a $5 million fine, Reuters reports.

To read the New York Times article, click here.

To read the Reuters article, click here.