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 U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in Manhattan ruled that as a
naturalized U.S. citizen, neither treaty obligations nor federal law
entitled Francis Lorenzo to immunity from prosecution due to his
diplomatic role.
"Rather, United States citizens who are diplomats assigned to the
permanent missions of foreign governments to the United Nations
enjoy immunity only for their official acts," Broderick wrote.
Brian Bieber, Lorenzo's lawyer, said he was "extremely
disappointed." He noted Broderick called the issue novel, and said
he would seek to challenge instead whether individual acts Lorenzo
took were themselves covered by immunity.
"We believe that diplomatic immunity was a natural and appropriate
extension to Ambassador Lorenzo," he said.
 Lorenzo, 48, was one of six individuals charged in October in
connection with an alleged scheme to pay $1.3 million in bribes to
John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda and
one-time U.N. General Assembly president.
The ruling came as prosecutors weigh whether to bring further
charges against Ashe, the General Assembly president from 2013 to
2014 who to date has only been charged with tax fraud due to
concerns about whether he enjoys immunity.
Prosecutors as recently as last month said they had been examining
the issue and likely would bring bribery and money laundering
charges against Ashe.
Herve Gouraige, Ashe's lawyer, said the ruling would not impact any
future bid by his client to argue that he had immunity for conduct
within the scope of his U.N. position.
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Prosecutors allege that Ashe, 61, accepted $500,000 in bribes from
Ng Lap Seng, a billionaire developer from the Chinese territory of
Macau who was seeking U.N. support of a U.N.-sponsored conference
center.
Those bribes were paid through two intermediaries, Lorenzo and Jeff
Yin, Ng's assistant, prosecutors said. All four men have pleaded not
guilty.
Ashe also received more than $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to
support their interests within the U.N. and Antigua, prosecutors
said.
Those payments were arranged through Sheri Yan, who was the chief
executive officer of Global Sustainability Foundation, and Heidi
Hong Piao, its finance director, prosecutors said. Both pleaded
guilty last month.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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