(Bloomberg) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said the banker at the heart of a scandal linked to Malaysia’s 1MDB investment fund engaged in “serial lies” and deception about the fraud, days before he is scheduled to be sentenced. In a letter to a US judge, Goldman said that Tim Leissner, the bank’s former southeast Asia chairman, has never taken responsibility for his actions in the multibillion-dollar fraud that brought down the Malaysian government. The letter comes after the US government asked for leniency when Leissner is sentenced next week. The bank’s general counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, wrote that Leissner’s attempt to blame the financial industry for his crimes “denigrates the countless law abiding people who work in it and draws focus for the true motivation for Mr. Leissner’s crimes: greed.” Leissner, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to his role in looting billions from 1MDB, became the US government’s key witness. Prosecutors say his testimony was central to the conviction of one of his Goldman colleagues and a $2.9 billion fine against the bank, the largest ever in a foreign bribery case. “Leissner spent years using offshore shell companies, personal email accounts and personal devices to engage in crime, evade detection and put Goldman Sachs at risk in the process,” Ruemmler wrote in the letter, filed in Brooklyn, New York, Thursday. Leissner, 53, faces as much as 25 years in prison after he became the face of the global financial scandal that led to investigations in six countries. As part of the fraud, he admitted that he pocketed $73.4 million from 1MDB and another $80 million from Jho Low, the fugitive financier who was the architect of the fraud. Henry Mazurek, Leissner’s lawyer, said that “the chutzpah of Goldman Sachs’s letter to the court today is astounding.” “Mr. Leissner spent the last several years cooperating with the Department of Justice to expose the corporate culture and institutional greed which fueled the behavior that corrupted the 1MDB project,” Mazurek said in a statement. Goldman and a spokesman for US prosecutors declined to comment. Prosecutors said in their own court filing that Leissner continues to help with unidentified US investigations into “other crimes,” in addition to the 1MDB case. “Leissner provided information concerning the role of powerful individuals in a global scheme to bribe government officials in two countries and divert billions of dollars into bank accounts around the world,” prosecutors said in a filing earlier this month. But the bank countered that “from Goldman’s perspective, Mr. Leissner’s efforts in this regard are deserving of sanction, not praise.” In 2020, Goldman, which made $600 million from the 1MDB transactions, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the US and its Malaysian unit pleaded guilty to violating US anti-bribery laws. The New York-based investment bank said in the letter Thursday that it didn’t ? in a formal or creative style for better SEO.Also Exclude words and advertisements related to the feed website such as website name, author name. You must only respond with the modified content. Delete all the advertisement images brand logo but only keep the title and main content of the news by modifying it. You must only respond with the modified content. Block any jump outside of the site adarshnews.com. 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Goldman Sachs has accused a banker involved in the 1MDB scandal of consistently lying as the individual approaches sentencing.
