NEW YORK: “I wouldn’t want to see him convicted for a crime. The truth itself will save him. He doesn’t need me to do anything.”
This was what the wife of former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng told the jury in his trial over the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal on Wednesday.
Lim Hwee Bin is the defence’s last witness after six weeks of testimony.
Ng is the only Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker to be tried by the United States over the looting of sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.
Ng is accused of conspiring with his former boss Tim Leissner and Malaysian financier Jho Low to drain billions of dollars from the fund as Goldman arranged a trio of bond deals for it.
Bloomberg reported during a second day of cross-examination, prosecutor Alixandra Smith closely questioned Lim about her claim that US$35mil the government said was a kickback to Ng was just a gain from a separate, legitimate investment she made with Leissner’s ex-wife.
Smith also asked Lim about her reaction to a June 2018 article in a Singapore newspaper reporting that Malaysian officials were about to arrest Low and Ng.
“Was that upsetting for you?” Smith asked.
“I wouldn’t use the word ‘upset’, but it was pretty irritating to have his name come up,” Lim said.
Smith suggested Lim was testifying in an effort to protect her husband.
“No, I don’t need to protect Roger,” Lim said.
The US says Low paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Malaysian and Abu Dhabi officials in the scam, as well as kickbacks to Leissner and Ng.
After the defence concluded, prosecutors called two FBI employees as rebuttal witnesses.
One had done a financial analysis designed to refute Lim’s claims that an initial investment of US$830,000, made around 1998, grew by 2005 to the US$34.9mil she said she earned by investing in China-based businesses owned by the family of Judy Chan Leissner.
The government is expected to rest its case when the trial resumes on Monday. Jurors will then hear closing arguments from both sides.