Quote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-16....
Aug 17, 2012

Ex-Morgan Stanley & Co. (MS) real estate executive Garth R. Peterson was sentenced to nine months in prison for transferring multi-million dollar interests in a Shanghai building from his employer to himself and a Chinese official.

Peterson, 43, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn, New York, for conspiring to circumvent internal bank controls required under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. He faced as long as five years in prison.

“I was on the wrong track,” Peterson told Weinstein after his lawyers pleaded for leniency, citing his cooperation with the U.S. and the fact that he has a wife and children in Singapore.

A former managing director at the bank’s Shanghai real- estate office, Peterson in 2006 arranged to sell an interest in a building held by Morgan Stanley to a shell company owned by him, a Chinese official and a Canadian lawyer, the government alleged.

Peterson told the bank the shell company was affiliated with a state-owned development firm, Shanghai Yongye Enterprise (Group) Co., the government said. ..