Woman in UN Bribery Scandal Gets 20 Months in Prison
NEW YORK (AP) — A tearful U.S. citizen who bribed a top United Nations official to get support for business ventures was sentenced to 20 months in prison Friday by a judge who said bribery schemes do "substantial damage” to the U.N.’s image.
Sheri Yan, 60, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in Manhattan after pleading guilty to a bribery charge in January.
The judge said prison was necessary because of the seriousness of the crime.
Yan admitted paying more than $800,000 in bribes to former U.N. General Assembly President John Ashe, who died several weeks ago in an accident at home. He was awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to a tax charge in the case.
Before the sentence was announced, Yan apologized, saying: "I will be forever punishing myself.”
Broderick rejected a request to keep Yan out of prison by defense attorney Christine Chung, who cited Yan’s difficult childhood and "the shame and dishonor and the ripping down of her whole life” that resulted after her arrest last fall. Prosecutors sought a nearly six-year prison term.
Chung described Ashe as a predator, seeking money at every turn.
Chung said Yan, born in the Anhui province in China, was forcibly separated from her brother and their parents for six years in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution when her father, a painter and poet, and mother, an editor and news broadcaster, were forced into labor or "re-education.”
She came to the United States in 1987 with $400 sewn into her clothes and worked as a nanny and home attendant in Washington D.C., where she met her husband, the lawyer said. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2001.
Ng, a billionaire, has pleaded not guilty to charges and is awaiting a January trial.
Sheri Yan, 60, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in Manhattan after pleading guilty to a bribery charge in January.
The judge said prison was necessary because of the seriousness of the crime.
Yan admitted paying more than $800,000 in bribes to former U.N. General Assembly President John Ashe, who died several weeks ago in an accident at home. He was awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to a tax charge in the case.
Before the sentence was announced, Yan apologized, saying: "I will be forever punishing myself.”
Broderick rejected a request to keep Yan out of prison by defense attorney Christine Chung, who cited Yan’s difficult childhood and "the shame and dishonor and the ripping down of her whole life” that resulted after her arrest last fall. Prosecutors sought a nearly six-year prison term.
Chung described Ashe as a predator, seeking money at every turn.
Chung said Yan, born in the Anhui province in China, was forcibly separated from her brother and their parents for six years in 1966 by the Cultural Revolution when her father, a painter and poet, and mother, an editor and news broadcaster, were forced into labor or "re-education.”
She came to the United States in 1987 with $400 sewn into her clothes and worked as a nanny and home attendant in Washington D.C., where she met her husband, the lawyer said. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2001.
Ng, a billionaire, has pleaded not guilty to charges and is awaiting a January trial.