Lawyers for Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund maven accused of insider trading, claim that the government wiretaps used against him were illegal and should be tossed out as evidence.

Responding to civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Rajaratnam’s attorneys also denied the Sri Lanka native used inside information to profit from high-profile securities like Google and Intel.

“In each of the stocks where Mr. Rajaratnam is alleged to have traded based on inside information, the information that was allegedly conveyed to Mr. Rajaratnam was already public,” the attorneys said in a filing with the Manhattan court.

The same defense will likely be used to in a criminal case pending against the 52-year-old founder of hedge fund Galleon Group.

Rajaratnam was arrested in October as part of the government’s biggest insider-trading case in a generation.

The SEC’s case has been assigned to Judge Jed Rakoff, with an Aug. 2 trial date.