What is tougher: to face prison or angry wife?

UNITED STATES: The government’s chief witness in a bribery case against a former United Nations official said he was debating whether it is tougher to face prison or his wife after disclosing he visited prostitutes twice while married.

The witness, Nishan Kohli, grimaced as he answered questions about the 2005 encounters during a cross examination by Jeffrey Brown, a defense lawyer for ex-U.N. official Sanjaya Bahel, an Indian national.

Bahel, chief of the U.N.’s Commodity Procurement Section from 1999 to 2003, is charged with bribery, wire fraud and mail fraud. If convicted, Bahel, 57, could face up to 30 years in prison.

Kohli pleaded guilty to bribery in a deal with the government that requires him to testify against Bahel and to relinquish at least $600,000 (euro444,773) for his role in a plot to manipulate contacts at the United Nations to secure $100 million (euro74.13 million) in contracts for his family’s companies.

Kohli testified a day earlier that his family gave Bahel a huge discount on two luxury Manhattan apartments, a cell phone, a laptop computer and thousands of dollars in cash for inside tips on how to place bids to supply the U.N. with technology and manpower.

Brown sought to discredit Kohli’s testimony by emphasizing the lies he said he used to secure about two dozen contracts and the fact that Kohli did not disclose to the government until Sunday that he had hired a prostitute twice while he was married in 2005.

Kohli’s plea agreement requires him to tell prosecutors about any crimes he has committed.

“In fact, you lied to them?” Brown asked him.

“That is correct,” Kohli answered. “In principle, yes, I lied.”

Kohli, of Miami, said he had hired prostitutes on five occasions, including when he was entertaining two U.N. procurement officers he did not identify and twice while he was married. He said lying was detrimental and beneficial because the prosecutors were “not the only ones who can punish me.”

Brown asked him who else could punish him, and he answered that his wife could.

“What’s worse, going to prison or facing your wife?” Brown asked.

“I’m debating that,” he replied.

As the defense lawyer pressed the subject, Kohli backed off slightly, saying he could not compare the pain of facing prison or his wife.

“You just did,” Brown said.

“I apologize,” he said.

Later, Kohli said: “I lied to my wife. ... I greatly regret that.”

Brown asked if he had been willing to lie to his wife and the government, and he admitted both.

“Why wouldn’t you lie to perfect strangers?” Brown asked with the jurors sitting several feet away.

New York, Thursday, AP