He said he "faked" a divorce decree in order to marry Ms Simmons while still being married to Ms Judy Chan Leissner. On Thursday, Leissner also confessed he was twice married to two women at the same time. He said he also invested in a multi-platform media company called All Def Digital and in Celsius Holdings, an energy drink. Some was also used for a down payment on a Los Angeles home he'd share with his new wife, Kimora Lee Simmons, whom he met in 2013, Leissner said. Leissner said he used some of the money he stole from Low to buy a US$50 million boat, part of the Inter Milan soccer team and a Manhattan apartment at 68th Street and Madison Avenue. It is a common practice for prosecutors to highlight the negative aspects of their witnesses to get ahead of anything that could be revealed by defence lawyers during cross-examination. In his fourth day of testimony on Thursday, Leissner delved into his personal life including how he lied, stole and cheated. "I had the intention to pay him back over time but I didn't have a chance," he told the jury. Leissner said his arrest in 2018 prevented him from repaying Ng any of the money. He said he then borrowed another US$1.25 million from Ng, his subordinate at Goldman.
Because much of his money was invested in illiquid assets, Leissner told the jury he kept US$80 million for himself.
When Low asked Leissner to "hold" €145 million (S$220 million) in a shell company in Mauritius, Leissner saw an opportunity. But the US$60 million in kickbacks he kept for himself was not enough, Leissner said. He said that "a large portion" of the US$6.5 billion raised through three 1MDB bond deals he helped organise with Ng was siphoned off to pay kickbacks and bribes to officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi. Leissner testified on Thursday that he also stole tens of millions of dollars from his accomplices in the fraud. "Bribes had to be paid to make it happen," he said, "but we always kept it to the two of us." "As Roger and I walked, we agreed we would never say anything to anyone at Goldman Sachs or outside Goldman Sachs (about the payments) other than the participants that were there," Leissner testified. Leissner said that after the meeting he and Ng walked back to Leissner's hotel. "I wanted to make more money, even though I was well paid at Goldman Sachs." "I was of course happy that I was about to make some additional money," he told the jurors. "I can't say I was surprised," he added, saying years of working in emerging markets had taught him that bribes and kickbacks were sometimes associated with projects involving government officials.Īt the end of his presentation, Low said Leissner and Ng would also be "taken care of", Leissner testified. "In my mind, that meant both sides had to get US$100 million," Leissner testified. Low said that at the top levels, payments to the Malaysia and Abu Dhabi sides of the criminal enterprise "had to be the same and be perceived to be the same", Leissner testified. On one side of the page were several boxes for Malaysian officials who needed to be paid off, and on the other were boxes for the Abu Dhabi officials, he said. He said Low, who held no official position at 1MDB but exerted outsized influence there, was able to get that guarantee from the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi and its subsidiaries.Īt the meeting, Low took out a piece of paper and "started drawing boxes", Leissner told the court. The project could not move forward unless 1MDB secured an outside guarantor for the debt it was about to take on, he told the jury.
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