By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Former Goldman Sachs (NYSE:) banker Roger Ng was sentenced to 10 years in jail on Thursday, after he was convicted of serving to loot billions of {dollars} from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund.

A jury in federal court docket within the New York Metropolis borough of Brooklyn final April discovered Ng, Goldman’s former head of funding banking in Malaysia, responsible of serving to his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle cash from the fund, launder the proceeds and bribe authorities officers to win enterprise.

The costs stem from some $6.5 billion in bonds that Goldman helped 1MDB, which was based to finance improvement tasks in Malaysia, promote in 2012 and 2013.

U.S. prosecutors mentioned $4.5 billion of that sum was embezzled by officers, bankers and their associates, in one of many largest scandals in Wall Avenue historical past.

Funds have been used to purchase high-end actual property, jewellery and paintings, and finance the Hollywood movie, “The Wolf of Wall Avenue,” in keeping with the Division of Justice.

U.S. District Choose Margo Brodie, who imposed the sentence, mentioned Ng and his co-defendants “successfully stole cash” meant for infrastructure and financial improvement tasks to help the Malaysian folks.

“There’s a important want to discourage crimes of pure greed like this one,” Brodie mentioned.

Ng plans to enchantment the sentence, his lawyer Marc Agnifilo advised reporters after the listening to. Ng had pleaded not responsible and argued $35 million in kickback funds he was accused of receiving have been truly a return on an funding his spouse had made.

The 1MDB scandal has rocked Malaysian politics. Former Prime Minister Najib Razak is serving a 12-year jail sentence after being convicted by a Malaysian court docket of receiving $10 million from a former 1MDB unit. Najib has persistently denied wrongdoing.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn had urged Brodie to condemn Ng to fifteen years in jail.

In a press release following the sentence, Breon Peace, the U.S. Lawyer for the Jap District of New York, mentioned the punishment would present “there’s a important value to pay for company corruption.”

Ng requested no jail time and that he be allowed to return to Malaysia, the place he spent six months in jail in circumstances Agnifilo mentioned practically killed him and harmed his psychological well being.

In court docket on Thursday, Ng advised Brodie he wished to return to Malaysia to look after his growing older mom, and to be together with his daughter.

“The final I held her in my arms was 5 years in the past,” he mentioned. “She was six then. She turns 11 this June.”

Brodie mentioned she takes the influence of sentencing on youngsters critically, however that Ng’s separation from his daughter was “not a novel circumstance.”

Leissner had been Goldman’s Southeast Asia chief. He pleaded responsible and testified in opposition to Ng as a part of a cooperation settlement. He has not but been sentenced.

Jho Low, a Malaysian financier and suspected mastermind of the scheme, was indicted alongside Ng in 2018 however stays at giant.

In October 2020, Goldman agreed to pay $2.9 billion and its Malaysian unit pleaded responsible to a corruption cost.