A US judge on Friday ordered former Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng to lose $35.1 million after being sentenced to 10 years in prison for helping to plunder billions of dollars from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.
U.S. District Judge Margo Brodie in Brooklyn rejected Ng’s argument that he now not owed him money after he forfeited tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars of alleged proceeds from his crimes to Malaysia.
Ng’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, also said that his client, a Malaysian national and former head of Goldman’s investment banking in Malaysia, had been stripped of most of his assets.
Brodie, nevertheless, said the $35.1 million forfeiture was not constitutionally excessive.
She also said that even when Ng was less guilty than others, he “played a role in a single of the best financial crimes of all time”, a scheme that caused “immaterial damage to the general public’s trust in democracy and government.”
![Sketch of Roger Ng's courtroom in March.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000007948275.jpg?w=1024)
Agnifilo didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.
Brodie sentenced Ng to prison on March 9, 11 months after a jury found him guilty of helping his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money from 1MDB, launder the proceeds and bribe government officials to achieve business.
Jho Low, a Malaysian financier and suspected mastermind of the scheme, was also charged but stays at large.
![Roger Ng in 2019](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NYPICHPDPICT000007940595.jpg?w=1024)
Leissner faces a sentence of September 6.
Goldman reached a settlement with the authorities in October 2020, agreeing to pay $2.9 billion and pleading guilty to corruption charges with the Malaysian entity.
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is serving a 12-year prison sentence after being convicted by a Malaysian court of receiving $10 million from a former 1MDB unit. Najib has consistently denied wrongdoing.