FORMER model Kimora Lee Simmons told a US court yesterday that she owns part of the Celsius shares that her ex-husband Tim Leissner was ordered to forfeit as part of his guilty plea to conspiring to steal from 1MDB, Bloomberg reports.

The shares in question are worth about US$93 million (RM413 million).

A US court in March ordered Leissner, a former Goldman Sachs banker, to surrender US$43.7 million cash and 3.3 million shares in energy drink company Celsius Holdings over his role in the defrauding of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

Yesterday Simmons asked a federal judge in New York for a hearing for her to establish herself as the rightful owner of 892,732 shares in Celsius Holdings,

The former reality TV star said she bought the shares with money she earned from her modelling career and Baby Phat clothing line.

“Leissner did not contribute any funds to the purchase of the Celsius shares and did not own the Celsius shares. The fact that the Celsius shares were used as collateral for Leissner’s bond does not mean that there is a connection between Leissner’s offences and those shares which were seized,” she wrote in the filing.

Shares in the company traded at US$104.26 yesterday in New York. – May 6, 2023.