U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick shot down the release request by Ng Lap Seng, who was convicted in 2017 of bribing United Nations officials to get them to support his plan to build an international conference center in Macau.
The judge said the developer had not shown that he was likely to catch a potentially deadly case of COVID-19, despite the ongoing pandemic and his current ailments.
"Although defendant does appear to suffer various health conditions and is of an age that places him in the category of inmates at a higher risk of serious illness or death should he contract COVID-19 — facts that the government does not seriously dispute — defendant has not demonstrated it is likely … that 'he will soon contract the virus and become critically ill or die from it,'" the judge said.
Judge Broderick said there had been no confirmed cases of the disease at the low-security prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, where Ng is serving his sentence. The judge also noted that Ng had asked to be released to house arrest at his apartment in Manhattan, one of the epicenters of the outbreak in the United States.
Moreover, Judge Broderick said Ng would be subject to detention by immigration authorities and deportation to China as soon as he is released from the custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
"Granting Ng compassionate release would therefore mean reducing his sentence to time served," the judge said. "I do not find that the circumstances have changed, including due the current health crises due to COVID-19, so dramatically so as to warrant a sentence of time served."
Prosecutors had fought the release bid last month, saying Ng's line of argument would result in every prisoner with risk factors being released, regardless of the crime committed or how much of the sentence had been served.
Counsel for the government and Ng did not respond on Friday to requests for comment.
Federal courts around the country are being bombarded with requests for compassionate release from prisoners who fear contracting the incurable and potentially fatal respiratory illness.
Some have succeeded, among them those from two parents who pled guilty in the "Varsity Blues" college admissions case who were recently allowed to delay reporting for their prison sentences due to concerns about the pandemic, though the judge denied their requests to serve their sentences at home.
On the other hand, a coronavirus-related compassionate release bid by a former top deputy to notorious Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff failed after a New York federal judge said he had to go through U.S. Bureau of Prisons channels first.
The government is represented by Daniel C. Richenthal, Janis M. Echenberg and Douglas S. Zolkind of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and David A. Last of the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division.
Ng is represented by Benjamin Brafman, Jacob Kaplan and Stuart Gold of Brafman & Associates PC.
The case is U.S. v. Ashe et al., case number 1:15-cr-00706, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Additional reporting by Jody Godoy. Editing by Peter Rozovsky.
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