The headline should read, “FBI busts Jimmy Meng, father of the 1st Asian-American to win Democratic congressional nomination from Queens.” Meng’s daughter, Assemblywoman Grace Meng, is poised to become the first Asian American from NY to serve in the US Congress.
This arrest has to come as a shock to Assemblywoman Meng, her family, and the Queens county Democratic organization. Grace Meng was elected from the same Assembly district that elected her father in 2004.
The NY Post reported the following this afternoon:

The first Asian-American in history of Empire state politics to serve in New York’s legislature was arrested today by FBI agents and charged with bribery.

Jimmy Meng, 68, a former state Assemblyman, touted his prowess as a deal broker and promised that he could bribe Manhattan assistant district attorneys pursuing a tax fraud case against an associate, officials said today.

Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that Meng – who served in the Assembly from 2005-2006 while representing Flushing, Queens – solicited $80,000 in bribes from an associate in exchange for ironclad promises that he would make the tax fraud case disappear, officials said.

But the feds say they don’t believe that anyone from the Manhattan District Attorney‘s Office was involved in the bribery scheme, and it appears that Meng was poised simply to cheat his unsuspecting friend out of the money – without delivering on his promises to get the tax case dropped.

Eventually the associate began working with FBI agents and Brooklyn federal prosecutors probing public corruption.

This afternoon, Meng was arrested by FBI agents after a surveillance team saw the associate deliver a fruit basket containing several thousand dollars in illicit payment to the former Queens pol’s lumber yard.

“Jimmy Meng sought to be a power broker in the halls of justice. But the influence he sought to peddle was corrupt, and his power was illusory. This arrest confirms that justice is not for sale,” said Loretta Lynch, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

 
FBI busts Jimmy Meng, 1st Asian-American to serve in NY legistlature, for bribery – NYPOST.com.