By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Patreon
Honduras - The Source - The Root - etc
EDNY COURTHOUSE, Jan 28 – In the 1MDB scandal Inner City Press live tweeted a proceeding in August 2020, here and below.
Now on January 28, Ng Chong Hwa, a.k.a. “Roger Ng" was applying to be released on a curfew. Inner City Press live tweeted it here:
AUSA: We are concerned that Mr. Ng would or could flee, if no longer confined to him home.
Judge Margo K. Brodie: Would he flee back to Malaysia from which he consented to extradition?
AUSA: As we approach trial, as he sees the 3500 evidence, it is a concern.... We conferred with our office of International Affairs and this is where we ended up.
Pre-Trial Services Ms. Carter: We don't object to a curfew, but location monitoring should continue.
Ng's defense lawyer: We don't believe your Honor is bound by, or party to, the treaty.
Judge Brodie: I will go with Pre-Trial and allow a curfew. The 2d Circuit's recent decision in Schwartz said the court delegated too much to Probation. So I'll set hours.
Ng's lawyer: Curfew from 8 pm to 8 am?
Judge Brodie: OK. Subject to Pre-Trial. Let's get together in a month, or really, mid-March since the administration order runs through March 1. March 18 at 10 am. Adjourned.
Inner City Press will stay on this case.
From October 22, "today, in federal court in Brooklyn, Goldman Sachs entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Fraud Section and Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Sections (the Department) in connection with a criminal information filed in the Eastern District of New York charging the Company with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. GS Malaysia pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to a one-count criminal information charging it with conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the FCPA. Previously, Tim Leissner, the former Southeast Asia Chairman and a Participating Managing Director of Goldman Sachs, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the FCPA and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Ng Chong Hwa, also known as “Roger Ng,” former Managing Director of Goldman and Head of Investment Banking for GS Malaysia, has been charged with conspiracy to violate the FCPA and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Ng was extradited from Malaysia to face these charges and is scheduled for trial in March 2021. All four cases are assigned to U.S. District Judge Margo K. Brodie of the Eastern District of New York."
For those counting, HSBC also got a deferred prosecution agreement. And the Federal Reserve, in the shadows, has let Goldman Sachs into bank, and rubber stamps mergers like by Banco Bradesco to this day. From August 2020:
OK - in EDNY, 1MDB / Malaysia defendant EDNY Ng Chong Hwa, a.k.a. “Roger Ng" charged with conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1Malaysia Development is before Judge Margo K. Brodie. Inner City Press will live tweet - thread
Judge Brodie says there is a back-up of cases caused by COVID19, no assurance this trial can go forward in January 2021. Says won't have real info in September - even if protocol is in place, it will still be being tested. AUSA points out extradition from Malaysia
AUSA says a status conference in early October would be fine "even if the trial is moved a little bit." Defense lawyer: I understand the difficulties of the court. But I'd like to convince the government or your Honor to loosen Mr Ng's conditions of home detention
Defense lawyer: Malaysia is not allowing Americans into the country at all, at least until September. This is a challenge we face. We'd like Mr. Ng to get out a bit more, and exercise. Judge: I think the parties should work that out. Next date Oct 6 at 10 am?
Judge: Does that work? Yes. Yes. No need to exclude time on this matter but I'll do it anyway. See you in October. Have a good day. Adjourned.
And on Goldman, from SDNY:
Bryan Cohen, a Goldman Sachs banker charged with insider trading with the same cooperating witness as Telemaque Lavidas now on trial, on January 7 pled guilty to conspiracy to commit securities fraud.
The US Attorney's Office did not publicize the proceeding or its 30 to 37 month plea deal, but Inner City Press was in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrates Court as the only media, and spoke afterward with Cohen's defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman. More on Patreon here.
Brafman told Inner City Press the connection to the Lavidas trial is the same cooperating witness. More formally, he said that "To his credit, Mr. Cohen has accepted responsibility for his conduct and will thereby avoid a trial. We are hopeful that at sentencing we will be able to pursuade Judge Pauley that despite his criminal conduct Mr. Cohen is a fundamentally decent young man who should be sentenced in a relatively lenient fashion."
In the proceeding, Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman accepted a consent order of forfeiture for $260,000. The sentencing will be before Judge William H. Pauley III on April 3 at noon. The case is US v. Cohen, 19-cr-741 (Pauley).
On January 6, the trial of Telemaque Lavidas began before Judge Denise Cote. Assistant US Attorney Daniel Tracer in a short opening statement described it as an open and cut case, which will include cooperating witness Marc Demane.
Lavidas' lawyer John Streeter told that jury Demane is simply trying to reduce his sentence and has no first hand information. Here's some of how it went, live-tweeted here.
Hours after the opening statements, the US Attorney office asked Judge Cote to ban discussion of how it conducted its investigation: "Based on the contents of defense counsel’s opening statement, the Government respectfully requests a ruling in limine precluding the defense from introducing evidence about investigative techniques that the Government employed during the course of the investigation. As set forth below, such evidence improperly suggests that the jury shift its attention from the charges against the defendant to the conduct of the investigation, and is irrelevant and misleading. 1. Background In opening statements, defense counsel on two separate occasions engaged in a recitation of the Government’s investigation and the various investigative steps that have been taken with respect both to this defendant and other individuals. For example, defense counsel said: The third thing is that you are going to learn that the government gathered millions and millions of e-mails and text messages and electronic devices, phones and computers and all kinds of evidence from this huge network of people who were engaging in insider trading – from Demane, from Nikas, from their whole network. And you are also going to learn that they gathered e-mails, and phones, and computers and all kinds of other evidence from Mr. Lavidas. (Tr. 32). Later in his opening, defense counsel returned to the same topic: The third thing that I mentioned is that the government has been investigating this case for years. They have collected millions of e-mails and text messages. And they have collected Mr. Lavidas’s phones, his iPad, his computer, his documents. They have collected a long list of phones, computers, disc drives from Mr. Nikas. They collected a long list of those same things from Mr. Demane. And they collected those same things secretly, for years, from Google and other companies where their e-mail accounts were.... The Government respectfully requests that the Court preclude the defendant from introducing evidence about investigative techniques that the Government employed during the course of the investigation."
The US Attorney doesn't want the jury to hear about this. And the public? Inner City Press will continue to cover this case.
