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Ex-Goldman Sachs Partner Barred by S.E.C. Over 1MDB Scandal
Tim Leissner, the husband of Kimora Lee Simmons, will not have to pay anything beyond the $43.7 million he agreed to surrender as part of a guilty plea.
Securities regulators have barred a former partner at Goldman Sachs from working in the industry more than a year after he pleaded guilty to helping orchestrate the looting of billions of dollars from a sovereign wealth fund in Malaysia.
The banker, Tim Leissner, did not contest the penalty in reaching a civil settlement announced Monday by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The agreement does not impose any new monetary penalty above the $43.7 million that Mr. Leissner agreed to forfeit when he pleaded guilty to money laundering and foreign bribery charges for his role in a scheme to siphon off most of the $6.5 billion raised for the 1Malaysia Development Berhad, known as 1MDB.
The claims raised by the commission are largely similar to the accusations brought by prosecutors in Brooklyn, where Mr. Leissner pleaded guilty in August 2018. Prosecutors said Mr. Leissner, who is married to the model and fashion designer Kimora Lee Simmons, helped loot funds from a series of bonds that Goldman Sachs helped the fund sell.
Federal authorities have that said Jho Low, a flamboyant Malaysian financier, was the principal architect of the scheme to bribe public officials and steal money from the fund to pay for the purchase of jewelry, a yacht, expensive real estate in New York and California and provide funding for movies such as “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
The settlement with securities regulators said unnamed “senior executives” at Goldman knew Mr. Leissner did not tell the truth during an Oct. 10, 2012, meeting when he was asked whether Mr. Low, whom Goldman’s compliance department had declined several times to approve as a client, had any involvement in the bond deals. Prosecutors in charging documents have tended to avoid using the phrase “senior executives” to refer to others at Goldman who may have known about the bribery scheme.
The bank has said Mr. Leissner’s conduct was not sanctioned or approved by his bosses.
“As we have previously said, Leissner has admitted lying to and deceiving the firm as part of his crimes,” said Maeve DuVally, a spokeswoman, in an emailed statement.
A lawyer for Mr. Leissner did not return a request for comment. A spokesman for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn declined to comment.
Mr. Low, who is believed to be living in China, was indicted last year. In October, he agreed to give up his claim to hundreds of millions of dollars in assets that have already been seized by the government.
Mr. Low was charged along with another former Goldman banker, Roger Ng, who is scheduled to go on trial next year. Mr. Leissner’s sentencing was recently postponed until next summer, after Mr. Ng’s trial. Federal prosecutors have not commented on the reason for the delay.
The delay coincided with renewed talks between prosecutors and Goldman over a possible resolution about the company’s role in the scandal. Goldman has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in connection with the bond offerings, which generated about $600 million in fees for the bank, but it has said it expects to pay significant penalties.
It was not clear why the S.E.C. settlement with Mr. Leissner came so many months after his guilty plea. In March, Mr. Leissner agreed to pay a civil penalty of $1.43 million in a settlement with the Federal Reserve.
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