Park Sentenced to 5 Years in U.N. Oil-for-Food Bribery Scandal

"I guess now it's for sure that his reputation and his memory is all going to be the fixer, the hustler," Dalley said. "For a while I guess I saw a guy trying to redeem himself from his past and doing something that was totally different. But apparently it wasn't."

Park's foray into Iraq diplomacy began in 1992 when he joined forces with Samir A. Vincent, a former Iraqi Olympic athlete who had close ties to officials in Baghdad and Washington.

Vincent had been unable to persuade Iraqi officials to allow the American Red Cross to oversee a humanitarian relief program for the country.

Park and Vincent hatched a plan to solicit millions from the Iraqis to try to bribe Boutros-Ghali and other officials to develop an oil-for-food program that was favorable to the Iraqi government.

In 1996, Hussein's government agreed to pay $5 million to Park and $10 million to Vincent, a portion of which was to be used to bribe unnamed U.N. officials. But Park received only a fraction of his cut, more than $700,000, in old bills stuffed into shopping bags.

The following year, Park traveled to Baghdad to try to collect the rest. Aziz provided him with $1 million in a cardboard box, which he exchanged for a $988,885 check that was invested in a Canadian company controlled by a then-senior U.N. official.

The federal investigation into the oil-for-food program has expanded into a wider probe of other corruption at the United Nations and has resulted in the indictment or conviction of 14 people. Vincent pleaded guilty and testified against Park at the trial.

But there was no evidence in Park's case that he and Vincent used the cash to bribe Boutros-Ghali.

Califano said a "fairly detailed review" of Boutros-Ghali's financial records yielded no evidence of inappropriate payments. "We think the Iraqis probably got ripped off," Califano said.