Lawyer drops out of high-profile bribery case involving real estate mogul Ng Lap Seng

The American attorney Benjamin Brafman, known for taking high-profile cases, withdrew as lawyer of Ng Lap Seng, real estate mogul under investigation by the US authorities for allegedly bribing a top United Nations official. Hugh H Mo, a reputable Chinese-American lawyer, confirmed to the Post that he is now the millionaire’s lead counsel.

The lawyer, who was described as “a trailblazer for Asian Americans and the community at large” by the Asian American Bar Association of New York, has been involved in Ng’s defence since late last year.

Mo was an assistant district attorney in Manhattan and a deputy police commissioner of trials in New York City – the first Chinese-American to reach the rank – before becoming a partner at law firm Whitman & Ransom in 1988.

He established the law firm Hugh H Mo, PC, six years later.

According to a New York Times article published in April 1988, Mo was born in Shanghai and lived in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Madrid. He arrived in New York at the age of nine and grew up in the Chinatown of Manhattan.

Ng’s defence team is currently completed by Park, Jensen & Bennett, LLP, and Shapiro Arato LLP.

The Chinese property developer was arrested in September in New York and later charged with bribery and money laundering. Ng, who has pleaded not guilty, was allowed to be under house ­arrest in October, a decision many attributed to Brafman’s talent.

Brafman, who was considered by many as Ng’s “ace in the hole”, did not respond to the Post’s ­queries on the reasons why he abandoned the case.

Further questions surrounding the case surfaced this week, as the man at the centre of the controversy, John Ashe, a former president of the UN general assembly, died of traumatic asphyxiation while lifting weights on a bench at his home in New York.

Ashe was accused of accepting US$1.3 million of bribes from ­Chinese businessmen to support their interests within the UN and also Antigua. He had only been charged with tax fraud, but prosecuters were considering seeking another indictment. Ashe pleaded not guilty.

Ng’s lawyer said that such an unexpected turn will have little ­influence in the Chinese millionaire’s situation. “We do not believe the untimely death of John Ashe will affect the pending case,” Mo told the Post.

“As we have maintained from inception that the government’s theory is seriously flawed and that Ng has absolutely no reason nor motive to bribe Ashe in connection with the Permanent Expo Project in Macau,” Ng’s lawyer said.

Mo noted that “the pending matter is still in discovery and ­motion schedule will be set this coming week”.

Ng allegedly paid US$500,000 in bribes to Ashe through intermediaries – including two other suspects – to receive support for a UN-sponsored conference centre in Macau.

Ng, who is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and also a member of the election committee for Macau chief executive, had no criminal record before his US arrest. But in the 90s, he was linked to a scandal on Asian funding for then US president Bill Clinton’s Democratic Party. He reportedly visited the White House several times and was photographed in the company of American political figures, namely ­Clinton and his wife – now ­would-be-president, Hillary.

At hearings in September last year, a prosecutor told a federal judge in Manhattan Ng earned about US$300 million annually, owned private aeroplanes and had passports from at least three countries. Ng and Ashe were charged last October along with four other people. Three of them pleaded guilty in the past months.