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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon

SDNY COURTHOUSE, June 26 – Vivian Wang, who as money manager for convicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng's South South News made payments to disgraced President of the UN General Assembly John Ashe, was given a time served sentence on June 26 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge George B. Daniels.

  On August 9, Ng Lap Seng's long shot FCPA appeal of his conviction was shot down by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, see below.

  Now in late September, Barclays has been hit with a $1.5 million low ball civil penalty for FCPA violations including the hiring of the incompetent daughter of the senior executive of a Chinese state owned enterprise. Sounds like Antonio Guterres' UN. Barclays also set up an "unofficial internship program" in South Korea to make such hires. Total bill at SEC: slightly over $6 million. A slap on the wrist.

From the 2d Circuit Ng Lap Seng majority decision, this: "Insofar as the district court nevertheless charged an 'official act' quid pro quo for the § 666 crimes, that error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because the jury, having found Ng guilty under the higher McDonnell official act standard, would certainly have found him guilty under a proper instruction omitting that unnecessary standard." That was District Judge Broderick, whose low ceiling-ed courtroom Inner City Press now covers nearly daily, both because banned from the UN for uncovering its corruption and more and more interested in the workings of his Federal court.

 And here, in full, is the concurring decision of Circuit Judge Richard J. Sullivan, who is also still overseeing criminal cases and even a trial, by designation: "18-1725-cr United States v. Ng Lap Seng SULLIVAN, Circuit Judge, concurring: I fully agree with the majority that the official acts requirement set forth in McDonnell v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 2355 (2016), does not apply to 18 U.S.C. § 666 or the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78dd‐2, 78dd‐3.  I likewise agree that the district court erred by giving (what turned out to be) an unnecessary McDonnell instruction.  However, that error is clearly harmless, for the reasons set forth in the majority opinion. Having reached this conclusion, I see no need to engage in an alternative holding that essentially hypothesizes what we would have concluded in the event that McDonnell did apply to § 666.  To my mind, this analysis obscures what is otherwise a clear holding, and since “[i]t has long been [the] considered practice [of Article III courts] not to decide abstract, hypothetical or contingent questions,” Ala. State Fed’n of Labor, Local Union No. 103, United Bhd. of Carpenters & Joiners of Am. v. McAdory, 325 U.S. 450, 461 (1945), I see no reason to engage in an unnecessary and purely academic McDonnell analysis. Accordingly, I decline to join in the majority’s alternative McDonnell holding.  In all other respects, I wholly concur in the majority’s excellent opinion." We'll have more on all this.

   Back in June, Wang's lawyers at Goodwin Proctor, in a heavily redacted sentencing submission, stated that her deceased husband Forest Cao "was 57 years old adn had no known health problems of medical conditions. No autopsy was performed."

 It also says, as to UN President of the General Assembly John Ashe, that while awaiting trial on UN bribery charges "his death was reported as the result of a 'weightlifting accident' after a barbell apparently crushed his throat."

  After the sentencing, Inner City Press with covered the Ng Lap Seng trial before SDNY Judge Vernon Broderick daily asked Wang's lawyer Derek A. Cohen if he was implying that Forest Cao and John Ashe were killed, and why he had so heavily redacted this sentencing submission.

 "It speaks for itself," Cohen said by the elevators. Likewise the Assistant U.S. Attorney on the case Daniel C. Richenthal declined Inner City Press' question about who beyond Ng Lap Seng Ms. Wang had cooperated against.

 Judge Daniels did not preside over the trial of Ng Lap Seng. He accepted the government's recommendation of time served with very little inquiry.

  He said as if by rote that corruption of the UN is a serious matter. But if so, why should a person who paid bribes in the UN get such a light sentence with little public showing of the benefit of their cooperation?

   Corruption has continued at the UN since the prosecution of Ng Lap Seng, resulting in his four year prison sentence. A second, separately prosecution was brought against Patrick Ho of CEFC China Energy, an entity which also tried to buy the oil company of Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation which employed current UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as a compensated board member.

  Neither in the Ho nor Ng Lap Seng cases where any of the UN Secretariat officials implicated in the bribery schemes prosecuted.

  This laxity can be contrasted with another SDNY proceeding a mere hour later, in which Judge P. Kevin Castel looked behind the U.S. Attorney's Office's 5k1.1 cooperation letters and imposed jail time on the four siblings, the Seggermans, who evaded taxes. That underlying case was USA v. Little, 12-cr-647 (Castel). This bifurcated case is USA v. Wang, 16-cr-495 (Daniels).

 Vivi Wang helped bribe the UN, and on June 26 she got a time served sentence for undefined cooperation. Judge Castel looked behind the government's 5K1.1 letter but Judge Daniels did not. And the UN continues corrupt. Inner City Press will have more, much more, on this.

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