Roger Ng, the only Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker tried and convicted in the global 1MDB scandal, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a milestone in the prosecution of the massive fraud.
“This is one of the biggest financial crimes in the history of the world,” US District Judge Margo Brodie said Thursday before sentencing Ng in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. It was there that a jury convicted him last April of conspiring to violate US anti-bribery laws and to launder money.
Turning to the disgraced 51-year-old former Goldman managing director — who had asked the judge to mete out no jail time at all, beyond the six-month term he had already served in a squalid Malaysian facility — Brodie said he had held “a great job, made good money and would have been comfortable.” So “the only explanation is greed,” she said, and there was a “critical need” to deter it.
Ng, who wore a navy blazer, white dress shirt and navy tie, had asked for leniency.
“It destroys me to think my family will be punished because of me,” he told the judge. “I deeply, deeply regret how this has affected others. Your Honor, I plead for your mercy and the chance to return home.”
He looked stunned as Brodie announced she was sentencing him to a decade in prison.
Uphill Battle
Jeff Ifrah, a white-collar defence lawyer and expert on federal sentencing guidelines, said in an interview before the hearing that convincing the judge to sentence Ng to time served was an uphill battle. He noted that the size of a fraud is a factor in sentencing and that the scale of the looting at 1MDB suggested Ng could get as many as 30 years.
“Once you’re above that range, it’s equivalent to launching a nuclear weapon in Times Square,” Ifrah said. “How much is the judge going to reduce that?”
See also: Goldman sues Malaysia as 1MDB settlement dispute escalates
Ng and his onetime boss, Tim Leissner, were accused of plotting with Malaysian financier Jho Low, the bribery scheme’s alleged mastermind. Low, now a fugitive, allegedly paid tens of millions of dollars to officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to clinch bond deals arranged by Goldman, taking US$1.42 billion ($1.92 billion) for himself.
Up Next: Leissner
Leissner pleaded guilty and was the government’s star witness at Ng’s trial. He will be sentenced in September but will likely get less time due to his cooperation. Prosecutors say he made US$73.4 million in the scheme. Ng earlier relinquished claims to US$35.1 million that the Malaysian government seized from his accounts.
Goldman paid more than US$2.9 billion to US authorities and more than US$5 billion globally for its role in the scandal, with its Malaysian unit pleading guilty in the US to a single conspiracy charge. Goldman’s US penalty was the largest ever for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
Ng was arrested in Malaysia in November 2018 and extradited in May 2019 to face charges in New York, where he was released to home detention on a US$20 million bond. On Thursday, the judge cited his Malaysian detention as one reason for she didn’t grant prosecutors’ request for a 15-year term.
After the hearing, Ng declined to comment on the sentence. His lawyer Marc Agnifilo said he would appeal.
‘Difficult Five Years’
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“We’re disappointed. It’s been an incredibly difficult five years, and the judge did acknowledge it, and heard all our arguments,” Agnifilo said. “But she came out with what she came out with.”
He noted that Ng still faces criminal charges in Malaysia and, once he finishes his term in the US, will have to return to face them.
“I would imagine a 10-year sentence will make an impression on them,” he said.
Breon Peace, the US attorney in Brooklyn whose office prosecuted the case, called the sentence “a just punishment.”
Ng was “a central player in a brazen and audacious scheme that not only victimized the people of Malaysia, but also risked undermining the public’s confidence in governments, markets, businesses and other institutions on a global scale,” he said in a statement.
PTSD From Prison
Ng had said in a letter to Brodie on Wednesday that a court-appointed psychiatrist found he suffers from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder after his detention in Malaysia, which he described as an “absolute hell.” He said he contracted malaria in the prison and that the experience was punishment enough.
Agnifilo on Wednesday also argued that Ng deserved leniency because the Malaysian government “has been made whole.”
Former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak received US$756 million in the scheme, and Khadem al-Qubaisi, a former managing director of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned International Petroleum Investment Co, which guaranteed the 1MDB transactions, got US$472.8 million, a forensic accountant with the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified at Ng’s trial.
“The government already sent its message to the world about Goldman when it accepted its money for a deferred prosecution agreement,” Agnifilo wrote Wednesday in urging leniency for Ng. He added that his client’s PTSD was “likely going to be exacerbated by confinement and by any experiences that reactivate his trauma.”
The case is US v. Ng, 18-cr-538, US District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
