(Note: This is a sponsored post from FreedomTalk. The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of Gateway Pundit)
By Matthew Palumbo
From day one, the New York Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager handling the case between Miles Guo and Pacific Alliance Asia Opportunity Fund (PAX), founded by CCP-linked businessman Shan Weijian, was a gift to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The timing of the lawsuit couldn’t have been any more suspect, coming just one day before the first-ever public appearance of Mr. Guo, aired on Voice of America (VOA), a U.S. taxpayer-funded media, on April 19, 2017. The VOA interview was infamously shut down on air right before Guo was about to Expose Wang Qishan, then Vice President of China, and Wang’s connection with HNA Group, a state-owned-enterprise that Guo exposed as a money laundering front for Wang and CCP kleptocrats. After the VOA interview, HNA’s Chairman Wang Jian died in France in an extremely suspicious death believed to be linked to the CCP, and HNA filed for bankruptcy, all but confirming Guo’s telling. Since then, Guo has founded a global movement, the New Federal State of China (NFSC), which is supported by 500 million people worldwide, making it the largest threat on Earth to the CCP regime.
The day the PAX lawsuit was filed, the CCP announced that Interpol had issued a notice for Mr. Guo’s arrest, leaving no doubt that these events were being orchestrated by the CCP.
The case between Mr. Guo and PAG made headlines for its conclusion with Ostrager ordering Mr. Guo to pay $134 million within five days or face arrest, claiming that a yacht falsely alleged to have belonged to him was moved to the Bahamas after being ordered to keep it in the U.S. The fine equaled $500,000 per day Ostrager says the boat (the “Lady May”) remained out of U.S. jurisdiction.
The Lady May isn’t even owned by Mr. Guo, but to his daughter Mei Guo. Both the ownership and financing for the purchase of the boat belong to Mei Guo. Despite that, Ostrager issued an order stating that Mr. Guo is the ultimate owner of the ship – the only evidence for which is hearsay.
The purpose of the judgment was simple – so that Ostrager could deprive Miles of the right to go to trial, and thus force him into bankruptcy – and thus the arms of the Department of Justice’s U.S. Trustee Office.
Mr. Guo did declare bankruptcy – and the DOJ manipulated the trustee appointment process to install Luc Despins as the trustee for his case. Despins has been linked to the CCP through him being a partner in Paul Hastings, LLC, a law firm that has done business in China and Hong Kong, and has represented many CCP State-Owned-Enterprises(SOE).
To better understand the motivations behind Ostrager’s rulings in the case, it’s essential to understand his many conflicts of interests pertaining to the CCP.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, where Ostrager spent his entire law career as a partner, arrived in China more than three decades ago, has hundreds of lawyers in China with offices in Beijing and Hong Kong and frequently represents, according to their own corporate documents, many “China state-owned” companies. Simpson-Thacher is also a leading player in bringing Chinese companies public through America’s stock exchanges. In 2010, of the 34 IPOs of Chinese companies on U.S. markets, 18 had involvement from Simpson-Thacher. Oddly enough, the firm boosts having represented “A Chinese company in an investigation by the DOJ into potential theft of trade secrets”.
Simson Thacher’s extensive business in China is hardly the only evidence connecting Ostrager to the CCP. Blackstone, one of the firm’s biggest clients, provides a direct link to the CCP. As early as May 2007, the CCP-controlled China Investment Corporations spent $3 billion for 8% of Blackstone, later raised to 12.5% in 2008. In March 2018, Blackstone announced a $400 million investment in PAG, PAX’s parent company, for 17.6% of its equity, giving a direct link between Blackstone and the CCP-linked PAG. Simson Thatcher represented Blackstone in their first-ever investment in China – a $600 million investment for 20% of a CCP-owned chemical company.
Even Ostrager himself has acknowledged his financial ties to Blackstone. On two separate occasions in 2020 and 2021, Ostrager was forced to recuse himself after it was revealed that his income was “derived at least in part from the substantial revenue the firm [Simson Thacher] receives from Blackstone.” Yet despite obvious conflicts of interest, Ostrager did not recuse himself from the PAX case against Guo.
Barry Ostrager is not even the only member of the Ostrager family with ties to the CCP. Ann-Elizabeth Ostrager, his daughter, is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell, which also boasts a large China presence. She is also the personal lawyer of the CEO of the CCP-linked Binance in a class action lawsuit against the company alleging market manipulation and fraud.
With backgrounds like this, no wonder why Ostrager chose not to recuse himself from Guo’s case – destroying Guo was his intention all along. If the CCP were to have handpicked a judge in this case, they couldn’t have done any better than Ostrager.