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

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

Prosecutors say Roger Ng, Goldman Sachs Team Inc’s former major investment banker for Malaysia, assisted his then-boss Tim Leissner embezzle dollars from the fund — which was founded to go after improvement jobs in the Southeast Asian place — launder the proceeds and bribe officers to earn business enterprise for Goldman.

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

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The costs stemmed from a single of the greatest fiscal scandals in history.

Prosecutors have said Goldman served 1MDB raise $6.5 billion as a result of 3 bond sales, but that $4.5 billion was diverted to govt officers, bankers and their associates by means of bribes and kickbacks in between 2009 and 2015.

Ng is the to start with, and likely only, individual to confront trial in the United States around the scheme. Goldman in 2020 compensated a just about $3 billion high-quality and its Malaysian device agreed to plead guilty.

Deliberations commenced on Tuesday soon after a almost two-thirty day period demo in federal court docket in Brooklyn.

Jurors read nine days of testimony from Leissner, who explained he sent Ng $35 million in kickbacks. Leissner reported the men agreed to tell banks a “cover story” that the income was from a genuine enterprise venture in between their wives.

Ng’s wife, Hwee Bin Lim, afterwards testified for the defense that the company undertaking was, in truth, reputable. She explained she invested $6 million in the mid-2000s in a Chinese firm owned by the family of Leissner’s then-wife, Judy Chan, and that the $35 million was her return on that financial investment.

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

Jho Very low, a Malaysian financier and suspected mastermind of the scheme, was indicted alongside Ng in 2018 but continues to be at big.