Even as Ng sought tens of millions of dollars in kickbacks, he also hoped to make partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc by helping the firm arrange a lucrative series of bond deals for 1MDB, prosecutor Alixandra Smith told the jurors in the government’s closing argument on Monday.
“While the defendant was making millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs, he wanted glory to move up from being a managing director to a partner,” Smith said. “Most importantly, he wanted the money promised, which was US$35 million.”
Ng, 49, is the only Goldman banker to go to trial in the 1MDB scandal, for which the bank paid more than US$5 billion in penalties.
He is accused of conspiring with his former boss, Tim Leissner, and fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, to plunder billions of dollars from 1MDB as Goldman arranged a trio of bond deals for the fund in 2012 and 2013.
Ng is charged with two counts of conspiring to violate US anti-bribery laws and one count of conspiring to launder money. He faces the possibility of decades in prison if he is convicted.
Smith showed the jurors a chart with the faces of nine of Ng’s alleged co-conspirators that included Leissner and the wives of both bankers as well as 1MDB employees the government says got kickbacks.
She said the chart demonstrated how Ng’s actions were “coordinated” with those of others who used offshore bank accounts and phony email accounts to conceal the scheme and were paid off handsomely by Low.
“The defendant would have you believe that he’s up there by accident, the only one who didn’t know what was going on,” she said. “But all the evidence makes it clear: Everything the defendant did was in line with what all the co-conspirators were doing.”
Tens of millions of dollars in bribes were paid to government officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to get the 1MDB business for Goldman, while Low doled out kickbacks to Ng and Leissner for arranging the three bond deals, Smith said.
Leissner, who pleaded guilty and testified against Ng, had told the jury he made more than US$60 million and paid Ng over US$35 million.
Smith told the jurors they could follow the money in funds transferred out of 1MDB deals to shell companies Low controlled and eventually to offshore entities controlled by Ng’s wife, Lim Hwee Bin.
Lim had testified that US$35 million sent to an account in her mother’s name was for a separate, legitimate business deal with Leissner’s wife at the time. Smith told the jury in her closing that emails and other evidence proved it was Ng and his wife who controlled the funds, and not Ng’s mother-in-law as the defence argued.
Some of the funds were used to buy luxury items, including more than US$250,000 in diamond jewellery, Smith said.
Lim was not charged in the case, but prosecutors have told the court she “participated, at a minimum, in a conspiracy to launder criminal proceeds”.
Ng’s lawyer has argued that Lim lacked crucial knowledge and therefore “could not have been part of a conspiracy to commit money laundering”.
Prosecutors said Goldman made more than US$600 million for its role in the three 1MDB bond deals.