The questioning of Maurice "Hank" Greenberg grew more intense at his civil fraud trial on Wednesday, prompting the former CEO to rip off his glasses, lean forward and raise his voice while answering a state prosecutor's questions about an internal memo he received in 2000 that laid out how an alleged sham transaction could be structured.

The memo, sent by Joseph Umansky, a then-senior vice president at American International Group Inc. (AIG), was the focus of the New York Attorney General Office's nearly three hours of direct examination.

While covering multiple contracts, the memo reportedly included a "schematic" chart of a potential reinsurance transaction at the heart of a major claim against Greenberg: That he orchestrated a transaction that wrongfully converted underwriting losses from the auto-warranty segment of AIG's insurance portfolio into capital losses, giving investors a false picture of the company's health.