Roger Ng, a former managing director of Goldman Sachs, was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for his role in the bribery and embezzlement scheme at Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.
Ng, 51, had pleaded for leniency. He said a court-appointed psychiatrist diagnosed him with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that prison will make worse.
The DOJ had asked for a 15-year sentence.
A federal jury in New York convicted Ng, a Malaysian citizen, in April 2022 after a seven-week trial.
The jury found him guilty on three counts of conspiring to violate the FCPA’s anti-bribery and internal controls provisions and commit money laundering.
He was arrested in November 2018 in Malaysia and extradited to the United States in May 2019.
Before extradition, he spent six months in jail in Malaysia. He said in a court filing before sentencing that his jail time there was “absolute hell.”
Goldman Sachs and a Malaysian subsidiary paid $3.3 billion in penalties to the DOJ and SEC in October 2022 to resolve FCPA charges related to 1MDB. It’s the largest FCPA settlement to date.
Goldman collected $600 million in fees for arranging $6.5 billion in 1MDB bond deals.
“High-level officials” of 1MDB and their associates looted more than $4.5 billion from the fund from 2009 through 2015, according to the DOJ.
Prosecutors said Ng and others, including Tim Leissner, Goldman’s former chair in Southeast Asia, conspired to pay more than a billion dollars in bribes to a dozen government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to win 1MBD work.
Leissner, 51, pleaded guilty in the United States in 2018 to two counts of conspiring to launder money and violate the FCPA. He cooperated with the DOJ and testified against Ng. His sentencing is now set for September 6. He already forfeited nearly $44 million as part of his plea.
A court in Malaysia convicted former prime minister, Najib Razak, on seven counts for looting 1MDB, including money laundering, abuse of power, and criminal breach of trust. A judge sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison but suspended the sentence during any appeals.
At Ng’s trial in New York, the DOJ called 26 witnesses. Prosecutors presented emails, phone logs, and bank records showing transfers of 1MBD funds to bank accounts owned or controlled by Ng or his relatives.
Following his conviction, the court ordered Ng to forfeit $35.1 million.
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