The prosecutors in California hoped to use the charges against Mr. Leissner as leverage to negotiate a plea agreement with him and to secure his cooperation in potential cases against several other people, one of the people said. The charges that were drawn up against Mr. Leissner included an accusation that he had provided misleading information to Goldman, something he was previously sanctioned for by securities regulators in Singapore.

The prosecutors in Brooklyn, who joined the investigation about two years ago, objected to the filing of charges against Mr. Leissner, which they said would hamper their investigation into Goldman’s possible role in the scandal, the people said. The worry was that accusing Mr. Leissner of tricking Goldman could undermine their case by casting the firm as a victim, one of the people said.

The unusual dispute between the United States attorneys’ offices eventually made its way to Justice Department headquarters in Washington, which also has been heavily involved in the investigation. Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, sided with the prosecutors in Brooklyn, handing them full responsibility for the 1MDB criminal investigation, the four people said. The prosecutors in Los Angeles were left to pursue civil cases involving the forfeiture of assets bought in the United States with money diverted from the investment fund.

The prosecutors in Brooklyn are now considering their own criminal charges against Mr. Leissner, which they hope will motivate him to cooperate and to provide more information about Goldman’s overall role and the roles played by others at the Wall Street firm, the people said.

Mr. Leissner recently hired Robert E. O’Neill, a former United States attorney in Florida, to negotiate with the Brooklyn prosecutors. Mr. O’Neill did not respond to requests for comment. Marc Harris, another criminal defense lawyer representing Mr. Leissner, declined to comment.

Until recently, the investigation was focused mainly on allegations that a Malaysian financier, Low Taek Jho, who is also known as Jho Low, misappropriated billions of dollars from the 1MDB fund. The prosecutors in Los Angeles have filed multiple civil lawsuits to recoup assets bought with some of that money.

When the prosecutors in Brooklyn started to investigate the matter in late 2016, a few months after the first civil forfeiture action was filed, their interest was on whether Goldman and other financial institutions had done enough to stop the fraud, the four people said. Since then, authorities in Brooklyn have focused primarily on Goldman’s activities.