In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYT,  Azerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Sept 16 – A man who allegedly committed US visa fraud for others while employed by the Chinese government was released on September 16 without the ordered GPS local monitoring bracelet, and after an inaccurate press release selectively distributed by the US Attorney's Office.

  Inner City Press was the only media in the
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrates Courtroom at 6 pm when at first Assistant US Attorney Gillian Grossman told Magistrate Judge Ona T. Wang that GPS monitor was imperative because the Chinese government could help defendant Zhongsan Lui to flee. Then after Lui's publicly funded Federal Defender lawyer objected, this AUSA spoke to an unnamed supervisor and said fine, release him. So was the GPS important?

  Inner City Press has seen many Bronxites remanded to the MCC until Pre Trial Services visits their apartments and installs GPS. So why was this different, from the same US Attorney Office which never followed through on China Energy Fund Committee's Patrick Ho's connection with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres?

  We'd ask - but the SDNY US Attorney's Office hasn't answer questions about sealed sentencing, and stopped sending Inner City Press press releases like that on Liu, despite Inner City Press being the only media in the Mag Court actually covering it. We'll have more on this. For now more on Patreon here.

Back on 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  by SDNY District Judge George B. Daniels.

   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.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Mail: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

 Copyright 2006-2019 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for