Leissner, 52, is due to testify in federal court in Brooklyn here almost four years after he pleaded guilty to his role in the fraud that stretched from Asia to Wall Street.
He is the US government’s star witness against Ng, the only Goldman Sachs banker to go on trial for the bribery scheme that prosecutors say was hatched by Malaysian financier Jho Low.
The 1MDB scandal included investigations in Asia, the US and Europe and led to the ouster of prime minister Najib Razak in 2018.
Authorities spent years tracking about US$4.5 billion (RM18.83 billion) that was allegedly siphoned from 1MDB and flowed into high-end art, real estate and a super yacht and helped fund the hit movie The Wolf of Wall Street, which chronicled an earlier era of financial crime.
Ng is charged with two counts of conspiring to violate US anti-bribery laws with Leissner and Low.
Prosecutors claim he conspired to circumvent Goldman Sach’s internal controls and engaged in a money-laundering plot with Leissner, who they say paid him US$35 million to take part in the scheme.
Ng was head of investment banking in Malaysia for Goldman Sachs and prosecutors said he introduced Leissner to Low.
Ng’s lawyers have argued that he played no role in the scheme and that Leissner misled Goldman Sachs compliance officials about Low’s involvement in 1MDB bond transactions.
Leissner pleaded guilty in August 2018 to conspiring to violate US anti-bribery laws and launder money. He admitted to bribing officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to get bond deals for Goldman Sachs. He was ordered to forfeit US$44 million.
In opening statements on Monday, Ng’s lawyer Marc Agnifilo assailed Leissner’s credibility and argued he was a “double bigamist” who was testifying for the US only to save himself.
Goldman Sachs in 2020 agreed to pay more than US$5 billion, including a record US$2.3 billion fine in the US, and entered its first-ever guilty plea for its role in the scandal.
The bank got a deferred-prosecution agreement while its Malaysian unit pleaded guilty.
Leissner faces the possibility of decades in prison when he’s sentenced this year. Low is a fugitive.
The case is officially US v. Low Taek Jho, 18-cr-538, US district court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).