Apartment in U.N. Case Is Sold

WSJ
April 27, 2010 
Original Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703763904575196201141002386.html?mod=WSJ_HomeAndGarden_LEFTTopNews
 
Everyone dreams of getting a big Manhattan apartment on the cheap, and for a time Sanjaya Bahel lived that dream. The one-time United Nations procurement officer occupied a three-bedroom apartment with two terraces on East 47th Street, only a block away from U.N. headquarters.
 
Mr. Bahel rented the apartment for several years at a discount from an Indian businessman who represented an Indian state-owned company.
 
Then, in 2005, Mr. Bahel bought the apartment -- actually two apartments that were combined into one -- from the businessman for $1.2 million, far below the market price at the time, court records say.
 
Now, Mr. Bahel, 59 years old, is living in a low-security federal prison at Allenwood, Pa. He was convicted Manhattan federal court in 2008 on five counts of mail and wire fraud and one count of accepting bribes to help the Indian businessman's company win supply contracts from the U.N.
 
Prosecutors charged the bribes included the discounts on the apartment's rent and sales price that Mr. Bahel received from the businessman.
 
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Marshal's office sold off the 2,100-square-foot apartment, according to property records. The sales price was $1.85 million, , still a bargain for a Manhattan apartment of that size even in the current market.
 
The Indian businessman, Nishan Kohli, had bought the apartment, located in Dag Hammarskjold Towers, in 2003 for $1.25 million.
 
He rented it to Mr. Bahel for $5,000 a month, even though the unit previously had rented for $8,600, the government said.
 
Federal court records show that after paying off a mortgage and brokers fees, part of the proceeds will be turned over in restitution to the U.N., where Mr. Bahel was chief of the U.N.'s Commodity Procurement section between 1999 and 2003.
 
A portion of the proceeds also will go to his son, Nikhil Bahel, an investment banker and a former vice president at Goldman Sachs in New York and India, according to court records.
 
The elder Mr. Bahel was charged with providing the Indian state company with confidential information on U.N. negotiations on supply contracts. The company won more than $50 million in U.N. contracts for laptop computers, radios and other gear for U.N. peacekeeping missions, the government said.
 
Mr. Bahel denied wrongdoing but he was found guilty in 2007 and sentenced in 2008 to eight years in prison.
 
Mr. Kohli pleaded guilty to a bribery charge and was sentenced to five years' probation in 2008.