Model cum entrepreneur Kimora Lee Simmons has claimed that shares worth about US$93 million (RM413 million) that a US court ordered her ex-husband Tim Leissner to forfeit in connection with the 1MDB scandal actually belonged to her.
In a filing before a federal judge in Brooklyn, New York on Friday, Simmons said that the 892,732 shares in Celsius Holdings Inc, a fitness drink maker, were purchased with her money earned from her modeling career and her Baby Phat clothing line.
“Simmons has established that she is a bona fide purchaser for the value of the Celcius shares. Leissner (above) did not contribute any funds to the purchase of the Celcius shares and did not own the Celsius shares.
“The fact that the Celsius shares were used as collateral for Leissner’s bond does not mean that there is a connection between Leissner’s offences and those shares which were seized,” Bloomberg quoted the former star of the reality TV show ‘Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane’ saying in the filing.
According to Simmons, the shares were wrongly included in a federal court order in March which required Leissner to surrender 3.3 million Celsius shares.
In addition, the disgraced former Goldman Sachs banker was also ordered to forfeit US$43.7 million (RM195 million) in cash as part of his earlier guilty plea to foreign bribery and money-laundering charges related to the 1MDB scandal.
Aside from Leissner, his former subordinate Roger Ng, a Malaysian, was also in March ordered to forfeit US$35.1 million (RM155 million), after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for helping loot billions of ringgit from 1MDB.
In November last year, Ng also sued Leissner for more than US$130 million (RM611 million), alleging that the latter repeatedly lied in order to steal his investments in Celsius Holdings, as well as artificial intelligence company Sentient Technologies.
Ng was convicted of helping Leissner embezzle money from 1MDB, launder the proceeds, and bribe government officials to win business.
Fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, the suspected mastermind of the scheme, was also indicted but remains at large.
Goldman settled with authorities in October 2020, agreeing to pay US$2.9 billion and having its Malaysian unit plead guilty to a corruption charge.
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak is serving a 12-year prison sentence after being convicted of receiving US$10 million from a former 1MDB unit. Najib has consistently denied wrongdoing. - Mkini
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