[ by Howard Haykin ] CDR Financial Products Inc. took payments from UBS AG’s municipal derivatives group for work CDR never performed.  A former CDR SVP executive told jurors in Manhattan federal court two weeks ago that, all told, 10 to 15 payments were received in return for rigging municipal bond bids. The witness, Douglas Goldberg, worked for Beverly Hills-based CDR from 1994 until 2006.  He testified that 4 UBS team members facilitated the payments from Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. to CDR for supposed brokering swap transactions  - which Goldberg said CDR never did.  Goldberg added that the payments,  the largest being about $475,000, were actually made to CDR for ensuring that FSA Holdings and UBS AG won bids that CDR brokered. Federal Trial Against Peter Ghavami. Goldberg is serving as a witness for the government in its trial against the former head of UBS’s municipal derivatives group.  Michael Welty and Gary Heinz, each a former VP in the group, are also defendants in the trial.  All are charged with conspiracy to defraud municipal issuers and U.S. tax authorities, along with wire fraud and mail fraud. Goldberg also testified about transactions he personally had rigged with UBS.  One deal involved the Centinela Valley Unified School District in Lawndale, California.  "I called Mark Zaino at UBS and told him that we were going to be doing this transaction and we could set it up for him."  Zaino, a former member of the UBS municipal derivatives and reinvestment desk, had testified for the government earlier in the trial. Winning Bid. Goldberg told jurors he informed Zaino that UBS would owe CDR if it won the bid, and that, "You’ll have to figure out some way to get us paid."  Within 2 days, UBS instructed CDR to send an invoice for $65,000, supposedly relating to a deal involving the state of Illinois.  Goldberg testified that although CDR hadn’t worked on the Illinois deal, they followed UBS's instructions and were paid. Guilty Pleas. Goldberg pled guilty in March 2010 to 1 count of bid rigging and 2 counts of fraud.  Although he's testifying as part of a cooperation agreement with the government, Goldberg told jurors he still faces up to 35 years in prison. The case is U.S. v. Ghavami, 10-cr-1217, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. For further details, go to: [Bloomberg, 8/16/12].