U.S. jury deliberates in ex-Goldman banker’s 1MDB corruption trial

NEW YORK, April 8 (Reuters) – A U.S. jury resumed deliberations on Friday in the trial of a previous Goldman Sachs (GS.N) banker accused of helping loot billions of pounds from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign prosperity fund.

Prosecutors say Roger Ng, Goldman Sachs Group Inc’s previous leading expense banker for Malaysia, helped his then-manager Tim Leissner embezzle dollars from the fund — which was founded to pursue advancement assignments in the Southeast Asian country — launder the proceeds and bribe officials to win small business for Goldman.

Ng, 49, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring to launder revenue and violating an anti-corruption legislation. His attorneys say Leissner, who pleaded guilty to related fees in 2018 and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors’ investigation, falsely implicated Ng in the hopes of acquiring a lenient sentence.

The charges stemmed from one of the largest economic scandals in background.

Prosecutors have reported Goldman served 1MDB raise $6.5 billion by way of 3 bond profits, but that $4.5 billion was diverted to government officers, bankers and their associates via bribes and kickbacks involving 2009 and 2015.

Ng is the 1st, and most likely only, individual to facial area trial in the United States above the scheme. Goldman in 2020 paid out a practically $3 billion good and its Malaysian device agreed to plead responsible.

Deliberations started on Tuesday soon after a virtually two-thirty day period trial in federal courtroom in Brooklyn.

Jurors listened to nine days of testimony from Leissner, who stated he sent Ng $35 million in kickbacks. Leissner claimed the adult men agreed to notify banking companies a “include story” that the funds was from a legitimate enterprise enterprise in between their wives.

Ng’s wife, Hwee Bin Lim, afterwards testified for the defense that the organization undertaking was, in actuality, authentic. She reported she invested $6 million in the mid-2000s in a Chinese enterprise owned by the spouse and children of Leissner’s then-wife, Judy Chan, and that the $35 million was her return on that financial investment.

Ng’s law firm, Marc Agnifilo, said in his closing argument on Monday that Leissner could not be trusted. A prosecutor, Alixandra Smith, reported in her summation that Leissner’s testimony was backed up by other proof.

Jho Lower, a Malaysian financier and suspected mastermind of the scheme, was indicted together with Ng in 2018 but remains at substantial.

Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York editing by Jonathan Oatis

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