FORMER Goldman Sachs banker Roger Ng, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for his role in the 1MDB affair, has asked to serve his time in Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, where has housed celebrity prisoners such as US business tycoon Leona Helmsley and artists Lauryn Hill.

Bloomberg reported that Ng’s lawyer, Marc Agnifilo asked US district judge Margo Brodie for the “lowest-possible designation” at the low-security federal prison for his client.

This was because Ng requires mental health treatment after suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from his six-month stint in a squalid Malaysian prison, Agnifilo wrote.

On March 9, Ng, one of the key figures in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd  scandal, was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the New York judge after the jury found him guilty of money laundering and violating US anti-bribery laws.

Ng and his former boss Tim Leissner, Goldman’s then head of southeast Asia, worked to raise US$6.5 billion for 1MDB via bond sales in 2012 and 2013.

The pair embezzled and laundered money from 1MDB, conspiring with Malaysian businessman Low Taek Jho, to loot the sovereign wealth fund, the jury found. – March 22, 2023.