Oil-for-Food Suspect, Ailing, Faces Arraignment in New York 
By Simon Romero
January 12, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/12/international/asia/12park.1.html

HOUSTON, Jan. 11 - A federal judge ordered an ailing South Korean businessman, Tongsun Park, held without bail on Wednesday, arguing that he posed a flight risk after his arrest here last week on a charge of illegally operating as an agent for Iraq in the United Nations oil-for-food program.
Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy also approved Mr. Park's transfer to New York, where he faces arraignment in federal court. Agents from the F.B.I. arrested Mr. Park here last Friday after Mexican immigration officials apprehended him at Mexico City's airport on the basis of an Interpol notice, Justice Department officials said.
The Mexican officials put Mr. Park on a commercial flight to Houston, accompanied by F.B.I. agents, said Melissa Annis, an assistant United States attorney. Ms. Annis argued for Mr. Park to be detained without bail, citing his history of legal problems in the United States and his financial means. Mr. Park was carrying $45,000 in cash at the time of his apprehension in Mexico, Ms. Annis said.
Mr. Park, 70, was a central figure in a Congressional bribery scandal in the 1970's that involved payments funneled through Mr. Park to American lawmakers from South Korea's national intelligence service. Although Mr. Park cooperated with United States officials in their handling of that scandal, federal prosecutors said he had avoided arrest and several requests to testify in the oil-for-food investigation.
An indictment secured by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York charged Mr. Park last April with conspiracy for illegally accepting $2 million from Saddam Hussein's government to serve as the Iraqi government's liaison with United Nations officials.
Randy Schaffer, a lawyer for Mr. Park, said his client was being treated unfairly, in that other people arrested in the case had been freed on bail, including wealthy individuals like Oscar S. Wyatt, the Texas oilman accused of paying kickbacks to Mr. Hussein's government. Mr. Schaffer also said Mr. Park's apprehension in Mexico was improper, because he was expelled against his will to the United States and not to his home nation, South Korea.
Mexican officials seized Mr. Park before he was to embark on a flight to Panama City, said Ms. Annis, the federal prosecutor, though it was not clear what he was planning to do in Panama. 
The swift cooperation by Mexican authorities in delivering Mr. Park comes at a time of tense relations with the United States on immigration issues. Mr. Park is believed to have strong business ties in Central America and the Caribbean, in addition to South Korea and Taiwan.
Mr. Park communicated with Iraqi officials in the 1990's by telephone from a residence in the Dominican Republic, according to a report last September by the oil-for-food investigating committee headed by Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman. Citing a business partner of Mr. Park, the same report said he went by the title Ambassador Park in Washington social circles, after purchasing the title of ambassador from a Nicaraguan official for about $150,000.
Mr. Park appeared in federal court on Wednesday wearing long underwear beneath the orange garb of the county jail, where he was transferred from a federal facility over the weekend to take kidney medication under the supervision of a doctor. Mr. Park said through his lawyer that he had recently undergone a kidney transplant, and was being treated for diabetes and high blood pressure.