Former Ropes & Gray associate Arthur Cutillo has been disbarred in New York a day after a Manhattan federal jury convicted billionaire Raj Rajaratnam on all counts related to a wide-ranging insider trading probe, reports The Am Law Daily.

A five-member panel of the New York State Appellate Division, First Department on Thursday (12 May) issued its ruling disbarring Cutillo, who was arrested in November 2009 and accused of passing along tips on confidential deals he worked on at the firm.

Cutillo was one of three lawyers caught up in the US Government's investigation of Rajaratnam's (pictured) Galleon Group of hedge funds. Former Ropes associate Brien Santarlas was disbarred last November, almost a year after he pled guilty to federal conspiracy and securities fraud charges.

Cutillo, 34, pled guilty in January to conspiracy and fraud charges related to his role in the insider trading scheme. Cutillo told a federal judge in Manhattan that he and Santarlas passed information on deals by 3Com and Axcan Pharma in 2007 to Cutillo's former college roommate, Jason Goldfarb, at the time a personal injury lawyer at what was then called Brecher Fishman Pasternack Walsh Tilker & Zeigler in Brooklyn. Goldfarb pled guilty to insider trading charges in April.

Catherine Redlich, a name partner at New York's Driscoll & Redlich, represented Cutillo before the appellate division, as well as on the criminal insider trading charges brought by federal prosecutors.

Jorge Dopico, chief counsel for the departmental disciplinary committee, and deputy chief counsel Raymond Vallejo handled the disbarment proceedings against Cutillo.

The Am Law Daily is a US affiliate title of Legal Week.