Lawyers Line Admin

An Indian-origin law student has sued Manhattan`s top federal prosecutor Preet Bharara and the US Justice Department claiming she was unlawfully questioned and her cell phone confiscated after she sent letters to the presiding judge during Rajat Gupta`s insider trading trial.

24-year-old Benula Bensam, who regularly attended the trial of ex-McKinsey head Gupta, filed a 16-page lawsuit against Bharara, prosecutors Reed Brodsky, Richard Tarlowe and the US Marshals Service in US District Court here this month.

In the lawsuit she alleges that she was subjected to ``unreasonable search and seizure for unlawful stop, detention, interrogation, seizure of property, search of property, search of communications and demand for identification.``

She is representing herself in the lawsuit. Bensam had got into trouble during the Gupta trial last month after she sent three letters to Judge Jed Rakoff on the case.