NEW YORK: The star witness in the bribery trial of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Roger Ng testified that ex-Goldman chief Lloyd Blankfein met in 2009 with then Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak just ahead of big bond deals for 1MDB – and that the meeting came with an agenda.
In return for the lucrative business, Goldman was to get Najib’s three children jobs at the bank, former Southeast Asia chairman Tim Leissner told the jury on Tuesday in his second day of testimony about the 1MDB scheme.
Leissner, 52, was describing the lengths he said he, his subordinate Ng and a tight circle of Goldman partners went to in order to loot billions of dollars from the Malaysian wealth fund.
He has pleaded guilty to money laundering and bribery of foreign officials. Ng, former head of investment banking in Malaysia, is charged with conspiring with him to launder money and violate US anti-bribery laws.
Ng is the only former Goldman banker to go on trial in the scandal.
Leissner testified that Ng told him Najib was coming to New York to visit his children in the US for the Thanksgiving holiday and that Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low, thought it would be a good chance for Blankfein and Najib to meet and promote the bond transactions. Low is now a fugitive.
After meeting with Low, Ng said Najib wanted to get his children the Goldman jobs, Leissner told the jury in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
Ng, who had travelled to New York to meet with his Goldman bosses, told Leissner he had met Najib’s children himself, according to Leissner.
“Just met PM’s three children at his apartment, am with Jho at his apartment,” Leissner read to the jury from an email. He said Ng added: “Meeting him again tomorrow and will work at getting his three children to join Goldman Sachs.”
Leissner expressed no qualms but instead enthusiastically replied: “Sounds good, let’s get them in.”
great business for us, so I felt having the children of the prime minister work for us would potentially be seen, not just for the prime minister”, but that “all others in Asia would take notice”.
In the end, Leissner testified, he helped get Najib’s daughter a job at TPG.
Leissner says lover blackmailed him into buying US$10 million home
The trial turned tabloid for a while on Tuesday as Leissner testified that a media CEO with whom he had an affair blackmailed him into buying her a US$10 million home.
Asked by prosecutor Drew Rolle about his extramarital affairs, Leissner cited several, including one with Rohana Rozhan, former chief executive officer of Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd. The relationship lasted from 2003 to 2013, he told the jury.
Rolle asked Leissner whether he had ever given Rohana any money he received from his 1MDB work. Leissner said he had – and that he bought her a US$10 million home in London in 2013 after she had threatened to expose his involvement with 1MDB.
“Ms Rozhan was very upset that I was ending our relationship to be with my future wife, with Kimora,” Leissner testified, referring to his wife Kimora Lee Simmons. “If I didn’t buy her a house, she would tell the authorities about my involvement in the 1MDB scandal. She was threatening to expose me. At the time, 2013, I was very fearful of that.”
Leissner pleaded guilty in 2018 to a count of conspiracy to violate US anti-bribery laws and to conspiring to launder money.
Leissner said he had discussed his relationship with Rohana with his then boss, former Asia head Richard Gnodde, when it first started. It was a sensitive issue because Goldman did business with Astro, Leissner said. Gnodde, who now runs the bank’s international business, told Leissner to “be careful about relationships with clients”, the ex-banker testified.
Still, Leissner said that he “continued with the relationship for another 10 years”.
“Pretty much everybody in our Southeast Asia territory knew it,” he said.
Rohana resigned from Astro in 2019. She did not immediately reply to a message seeking comment that was sent to her LinkedIn account outside regular business hours. Emails to Astro and Gnodde also were not immediately returned. - FMT
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