Defense: Case against Chinese billionaire 'a big zero'

NEW YORK (AP) - A lawyer says evidence supporting charges accusing a Chinese billionaire of bribing two United Nations ambassadors to build a U.N. conference center amount to a "big zero."

Defense attorney Tai Park delivered closing arguments Tuesday at the trial of 69-year-old Ng Lap Seng (ihng lap sihng).

Park spoke after Assistant U.S. Attorney Janis Echenberg (EHK'-ehn-burg) said Ng paid millions of dollars in bribes to overcome rules that could slow his effort to build the center in Macau. She said he wanted to build the "Geneva of Asia."

Echenberg says Ng paid millions of dollars in bribes from 2010 to 2015 to speed construction of what he hoped would be his legacy.

Ng has been confined to a Manhattan apartment for most months since his September 2015 arrest.