NEW YORK (AP) – A U.S. citizen who served as a foreign diplomat from the Dominican Republic pleaded guilty Wednesday in a United Nations bribery case, agreeing to cooperate with the government against co-defendants who include a former U.N. General Assembly president and a Chinese billionaire.
Francis Lorenzo, 48, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court to six charges, including conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and tax counts.
Lorenzo told U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick that he facilitated the payment of bribes to others and accepted payments himself from Chinese businessmen, including billionaire Ng Lap Seng.
Lorenzo, who was suspended as a deputy ambassador from the Dominican Republic after his arrest, admitted that some of the bribes were paid to John Ashe when Ashe served as General Assembly president for parts of 2013 and 2014.
He also agreed with a prosecutor who described the allegations against him, including that some of the bribes were paid to gain Ashe’s support for the construction of a U.N.-sponsored conference center that Ng hoped to build in his hometown of Macau. Prosecutors have said Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda, received over $1 million in bribes.