BOSTON, July 24 (Reuters) - A former employee of a federal prison in Massachusetts has agreed to plead guilty to secretly accepting thousands of dollars from Raj Rajaratnam while the Galleon Group hedge fund founder was serving time for insider trading, according to court records and a person familiar with the matter.

Federal prosecutors in Boston on Monday said William Tidwell accepted over $90,000 in benefits and a $50,000 property loan from a high net-worth inmate while working as a correctional counselor at the Federal Medical Center Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts.

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Court papers only identified the former inmate as "Individual 1." A person familiar with the matter said he was Rajaratnam, who was sentenced in 2011 to 11 years in prison and was released early in 2019.

Prosecutors had accused Rajaratnam, the founder of the New York-based hedge fund Galleon Group, of making as much as $63.8 million in illicit profit from 2003 to 2009 trading on stocks including eBay (EBAY.O), Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Google (GOOGL.O).

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Rajaratnam was not charged in Monday's case against Tidwell.

"This is the first we're learning of the charges against Mr. Tidwell," said Samidh Guha, Rajaratnam's lawyer. "We of course would cooperate appropriately with the government if and when they reach out to us."

Tidwell as part of a plea deal has agreed to plead guilty to bribery in violation of official duties, making false...

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