Dust off another bunk at the 'Crown Jewel' prison: Raj Rajaratnam may serve that time at a North Carolina prison whose inmates include Ponzi scheme mastermind Bernard Madoff, corporate looter John Rigas and terrorist leader Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman. The 5,045 inmates at the Butner prison complex also include Samuel Israel, the Bayou Group hedge fund co-founder who directed a $400mn fraud, and Timothy Rigas, son of the Adelphia Communications founder John Rigas and a participant in the fraud that destroyed their company. U.S. District Judge Richard Holwell, who imposed Rajaratnam's 11- year sentence in Manhattan federal court, said he would recommend that the Galleon Group LLC co-founder be sent to the federal medical center in Butner, North Carolina, because of Rajaratnam’s health problems. “It’s the crown jewel of the federal prison system,” said Alan Ellis, a former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and an expert on sentencing and prisons. “It’s a very well-run facility.” The choice of prison may be critical for Rajaratnam who, in addition to advanced diabetes, faces kidney failure and the necessity of transplant surgery, according to Holwell. He also suffers from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and sleep apnea. In 2007, Rajaratnam suffered a “severe cryptogenic stroke,” or a stroke of undetermined cause, Wise said. He will soon need dialysis and his doctors have begun the process of obtaining a kidney transplant. Rajaratnam has been hospitalized several times this year, Holwell said at the Oct. 13 sentencing. In May, he missed part of jury deliberations in his trial because he required emergency foot surgery to treat a bacterial infection, his lawyers said at the time. Holwell’s recommendation doesn’t guarantee Rajaratnam will be sent to Butner. While U.S. prison officials frequently honor a judge’s request to assign an inmate to a particular prison, Rajaratnam’s selection will go before a Bureau of Prisons medical review panel in Washington. The panel will evaluate his condition before deciding whether to assign him to one of the few spots available in prison medical centers. [Bloomberg, 10/15/11]