KUALA LUMPUR – A Brooklyn federal court judge has postponed the jury selection to early February for the trial involving former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng and his alleged hand in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) financial scandal.
Prosecutors have sought to delay the trial, citing the Omicron coronavirus variant as a factor in travel disruptions of government witnesses from Hong Kong, Singapore and the United Kingdom, reported Reuters.
Chief Judge Margo Brodie then set the jury selection on February 7 and the trial to begin a week later. Initially jury selection was to start on January 18.
“It will be a little easier for us to get a decent jury pool because, according to the epidemiologist, the virus will peak in January, then I think we’ll be on the down end of it,” she was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Ng’s lawyers opposed the delay, saying their client is ready for the trial after being away from his family for more than three years.
He was first arrested in Malaysia in November 2018 and extradited six months later.
“He’s spent every one of the last 1,000 days getting ready for this trial, and that’s what he’s going to do until this trial is over,” Ng’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo told Brodie.
Ng, on December 19, 2018, pleaded not guilty to four charges of abetting Goldman Sachs on the sale of 1MDB bonds valued at US$6.5 billion (RM27.3 billion) by dropping material facts and making false statements.
He is the former head of investment banking for Goldman Sachs Malaysia.
Last June, Goldman Sachs Group Inc was given 10 days to settle its remaining US$1.26 billion penalty payment to the US, from a total of US$2.3 billion for its role in the 1MDB financial scandal.
The US multinational investment bank and its Malaysian unit were initially charged with conspiring to engage in a five-year scheme to violate US anti-bribery laws, which it has since admitted.
The report said that Goldman Sachs earned more than US$600 million in fees while making illicit payments to officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi to get and retain business for the bank from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.
The exposure of the scandal saw former prime minister and then finance minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak subsequently charged and convicted of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in relation to RM42 million belonging to SRC International Sdn Bhd.
While Najib is currently appealing against the decision, he is also facing trial for various other offences relating to 1MDB, including the misappropriation of RM2.28 billion. – The Vibes, January 8, 2022
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