Billionaire’s aide wants statements blocked in UN bribery case

An aide to billionaire Chinese developer Ng Lap Seng claims he was fooled into making statements after his arrest last year and has asked a judge to block their use as evidence in an upcoming Manhattan federal court trial of bribery charges involving United Nations officials.

Jeffrey Yin, who is charged along with Ng, said he had spent the night with his boss at Foxwoods casino and hadn’t slept for 24 hours when he was arrested in September 2015 at his Manhattan hotel. He said he was misled about his Miranda rights and was not taken promptly to see a judge despite asking an agent multiple times.

“I understood from what he told me that talking to him was to my benefit,” translator Jeffrey Yin said in a sworn statement, filed Thursday with his motion to suppress statements. “I also thought that I had to talk to him because I had been handcuffed, put in a car and driven away.”

Yin is accused of helping Ng with a bribery scheme that included paying a UN official to support a conference center Ng wanted to develop in Macau. The two brought in cash and visited a Long Island mansion owned by a wealthy associate of Ng during the trip that ended in their arrest.

Their trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 23.