A federal prosecutor advised jurors on Monday that they’d obtained sufficient proof to convict a former Goldman Sachs banker for his position in one of many largest worldwide cash laundering and bribery schemes even with out the testimony of the federal government’s star witness.
“You already know the defendant is responsible from different proof within the case,” Alixandra E. Smith, an assistant U.S. lawyer, stated throughout the federal government’s closing argument within the trial of Roger Ng in federal courtroom in Brooklyn.
Mr. Ng is accused of receiving $35 million in unlawful kickbacks from a scheme to steal billions of {dollars} from the once-big Malaysian sovereign wealth fund generally known as 1MDB.
Over the course of the trial, Tim Leissner, a former Goldman associate who pleaded responsible and have become the federal government’s star witness, emerged as a controversial determine, and it’s not shocking federal prosecutors need the jury to not focus an excessive amount of on his testimony.
Throughout six days of a grueling cross-examination he admitted to mendacity quite a bit in life. He was pressured to confess to initially mendacity to federal brokers, to his fellow companions at Goldman and to his wives and girlfriends.
However Ms. Smith stated Mr. Leissner didn’t lie when he testified in federal courtroom in Brooklyn to the important thing info of the scheme, which was funded by a sequence of bond choices that Goldman organized for the 1MDB fund.
When it was time for Mr. Ng’s lawyer to current his closing arguments, he didn’t waste time calling out Mr. Leissner. The lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, stated Mr. Leissner was a person who “will lie if it fits his curiosity.” He stated that, regardless of what the prosecution had stated, with out Mr. Leissner’s testimony the federal government couldn’t join Mr. Ng to the conspiracy to steal billions from the 1MDB fund.
“There is no such thing as a proof that connects Roger,” Mr. Agnifilo stated. “There may be not a grimy e mail. Not a nasty textual content message.”
Against this, Mr. Agnifilo stated, the jury had seen textual content messages wherein Mr. Leissner was instructed on whom to pay bribe cash to by Jho Low, a flamboyant Malaysian businessman who was the architect of the scheme and is a fugitive believed to be residing in China.
Mr. Agnifilo stated Mr. Leissner had lied to the jury simply as he had completed different occasions in his life.
“It’s a lifetime of mendacity,” stated Mr. Agnifilo. “That is mendacity on a uncommon degree.”
Final week, the jury heard testimony from Mr. Ng’s spouse, Hwee Bin Lim, who stated the $35 million she and her husband obtained was the proceeds from a $6 million funding she made with Mr. Leissner’s second spouse, Judy Chan.
The protection has argued Mr. Ng and his spouse had been unaware that a few of the cash Ms. Chan transferred to them had been looted from 1MDB. Mr. Leissner has acknowledged getting tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in illicit proceeds within the scheme.
The case may go to the jury as quickly as Tuesday afternoon.
