Goldman Sachs banker gets two years for international bribery scheme

BROOKLYN (CN) — Tim Leissner, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs, received a sentence of two years in prison after pleading guilty to federal bribery charges — and helping U.S. prosecutors secure a conviction — tied to a multibillion-dollar scheme to rob the fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad, otherwise known as 1MDB.

Leissner, now 55, admitted to his role in bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi so that 1MDB would execute lucrative bond deals with the global investment bank. He was ordered to forfeit $43.7 million under his guilty plea. Chief U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie sentenced Leissner to 24 months in custody on each of two counts, to be served concurrently.

“Your cooperation does not completely make up for the harm and devastation you knowingly caused through your conduct, which was completely selfish, so some punishment is warranted,” Brodie told Leissner before handing down the sentence. “Without you, it’s unclear that these crimes would have taken place in the first place."

Goldman Sachs itself also faced criminal charges. The bank’s Malaysian subsidiary pleaded guilty and the bank paid $5 billion in penalties, according to court documents.

Leissner was the government’s star witness in the trial and conviction of Ng Chong Hwa, who goes by Roger, the only banker to face trial over the scheme. Ng received a 10-year prison sentence while the plan’s purported mastermind and his co-defendant, “playboy” Malaysian businessman Jho Low, remains at large.

Malaysia created the 1MDB fund in 2009 to stimulate economic growth, but the project was quickly infiltrated by a vast embezzlement scheme in which proceeds were laundered around the world. The money flowed through art auctions, luxury New York City real estate and Hollywood production companies, one of which produced the Oscar-nominated Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Described at trial by another Goldman employee as an aggressive businessman, Leissner admitted he didn’t tell the firm about the bribes paid as part of the three bond transactions with 1MDB. He also said he hid the fact that at the center of the bribery scheme was Low, an exceedingly well-connected Malaysian businessman who had already gained tabloid fame for extravagant parties in Las Vegas and New York City.

Low, whose full name is Low Taek Jho, paid celebrities, models and musicians to attend the multimillion-dollar blowouts, a marketing executive testified. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Kim Kardashian, P. Diddy, Fergie, Pharell, Ke$ha and Paris Hilton all appeared on guest lists.

Leissner was previously married to Kimora Lee Simmons, a model and TV personality with whom he has a son.

At Ng’s trial, Leissner said the two men were “best friends” who worked closely to obtain and carry out the illicit business: Ng as former head of Goldman’s business in Malaysia and Leissner in charge of all of Southeast Asia.

Ng meanwhile argued he was made the fall guy, one of about two dozen co-conspirators implicated by the government, many of them high-up government officials or senior to him at Goldman, like Leissner.

His trial attorney urged the jury not to take Ng’s former boss-turned-cooperator at his word.

Leissner, after all, admitted to lying to the FBI in early interviews; said he was married to two women simultaneously — two separate times — and accordingly forged divorce documents; and testified he created a fake email address in his ex-wife’s name and used it to communicate with his then-girlfriend for more than a year.

Leissner’s family supported him in the lead-up to his sentencing, writing letters asking Chief U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie for leniency.

Goldman, however, skewered its former employee in its own filing: “Mr. Leissner’s serial lies, fraud, and deception at Goldman Sachs continued from the day he first brought the transactions through the firm to the day he left the firm.”

Trial testimony made clear that Leissner took steps to evade internal controls at Goldman, but also that executives weren’t exactly in the dark about the bribery scheme.

“They were aware of what you were doing and simply looked the other way because everybody’s getting rich; that’s the culture,” Brodie, a Barack Obama appointee, said Thursday.

In his own remarks to the court, Leissner apologized to the people of Malaysia and to his family. He broke into tears twice as his elderly parents and one of his daughters sat in the gallery.

“What we did was very wrong, and I take full responsibility for my role,” Leissner said. “If I could turn back time, I would."

Leissner’s attorney Henry Mazurek took a shot at Goldman, too, in a statement following the sentencing.

“We respect the court’s decision today and Mr. Leissner is prepared to serve his sentence and continue his future life of good works and care for his family. We, however, agree with the prosecutor’s comments at sentencing that his former employer, Goldman Sachs, as a messenger calling for sanctions against Mr. Leissner lacked all credibility. Mr. Leissner long exposed that this emperor has no clothes,” Mazurek said.

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