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Tim Leissner, the crashed former Goldman Sachs banker in the heart of the 1MDB scandal of millions of dollars, has been sentenced to two years in prison and ends one of the most notorious persecutions in the history of Wall Street.
Leissner, who was confronted for up to 25 years in prison, told Judge Margo Brodie van Brooklyn Federal Court that he stood in front of her “in shame” and admitted that what he had done was “very wrong”.
It was wearing a dark suit, the former banker apologized “to the people of Malaysia, who are the real victims”, adding that if “I could turn the time back”. Leissner said that he “had lost almost everything”, including his career, freedom, family and financial independence. One of Leissner’s daughters and his parents were in court.
“I lost my will to live,” said Leissner, “I tried to take as many pills as I could to end it then … It was absolutely rock.”
Judge Brodie said that some colleagues from Leissner “were aware of what you did and just looked the other way because everyone got rich”. She described the 1MDB case as “brutal corruption at the highest level of the government in several countries”.
Leissner’s sentence marks a milestone in the investigation of US law enforcement to the 1MDB affair, in which Goldman Bankers helped Malaysian officials to abuse around $ 4.5 billion of her sovereign wealth fund, according to public prosecutors. At the start of the investigation, Leissner argued guilty and agreed to collaborate with officers of justice, witnesses in the process of one of his former colleagues, Roger NG.
It turned out to be crucial to protect Leissner a more mild punishment, despite his vital role in the embezzlement schedule.
Goldman admitted that he paid more than $ 1 billion in bribes to obtain the insurance work and paid nearly $ 3 billion in criminal fines under a resolution with the US Department of Justice, in a Saga that oversigned Malaysia, the US, both high-flying financiers and polici. The case also led to the prosecution of the then Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, who was convicted and eventually sentenced to six years in prison.
NG was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2023 after a jury in New York was guilty of bribery and money laundering. Razak, who helped in finding 1MDB, fights his prison sentence in Kuala Lumpur. Another central figure, Malaysian financier JHO Low, was charged by American authorities. He stays in general and maintains his innocence.
Leissner will start his prison time on 15 September. The judge has not imposed a fine. Leissner has been on bail for the past seven years, with limitations on his ability to travel, and wore a single monitor for part of that time, said his lawyer, Henry Mazurek.
He claimed that his client had undergone a “huge transformation” in an attempt “regain the soul he had lost”.
Leissner “wants the possibility to rectify the mistakes he has committed,” Mazurek added, who asked for his client to prison early.
The Ministry of Justice has not recommended. Officer of Justice Drew Rolle described the scandal as “the greatest financial crime in world history”, but said that Leissner’s cooperation was crucial for the investigation and the charges against NG and Low.
Leissner previously testified how he sent Goldman’s three 1MDB bonds’ regulation in 2012 and 2013, which yielded around $ 6.5 billion before the former banker helped to help more than $ 2.7 billion from the Malaysian fund.
He told the court that he spent his part of the stolen 1MDB yield, about $ 60 million, on a 170ft yacht and real estate in New York and London, as well as investments in the Italian football team Inter Milan.
The general lawyer of the Bank Kathryn Ruemmler wrote to the court this month to say that Leissner “many people in the Wall Street Group in the Wall Street group lied and” has “still repaid a cent” of an arbitration price of $ 20.7 million that a court said he is Goldman in 2023.
Rolle said before the court that the letter from the bank was “really extraordinary” and came from an “institution that continues to resist the responsibility for his central role”. “It’s a bit like an escape driver who pops up at the conviction of an employee,” he said.