NEW YORK (AP) – A former Russian diplomat who once chaired the powerful United Nations’ budget oversight committee was convicted Wednesday of conspiring with a U.N. procurement officer to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign companies seeking U.N. contracts.

Vladimir Kuznetsov, 49, was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering by a jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after less than a day of deliberations.

Kuznetsov was charged in 2005 after an internal U.N. investigation of Alexander Yakovlev, a Russian who worked in the U.N. procurement office. Yakovlev pleaded guilty in federal court in 2005 to soliciting a bribe, wire fraud and money laundering.

As part of a cooperation deal, Yakovlev had admitted accepting nearly $1 million in bribes from U.N. contractors. He testified against Kuznetsov.

Prosecutors said Kuznetsov in 2000 established an offshore company to hide criminal proceeds from Yakovlev, who received secret payments from foreign companies seeking contracts to provide goods and services to the United Nations.

Prosecutors said the procurement officer provided the companies with confidential and other information from the United Nations about the contracts.

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had waived Kuznetsov’s immunity at the request of American authorities.

At a closing statement Tuesday, Stephen A. Miller, the federal prosecutor in the case, said Kuznetsov tried to blame Yakovlev, “a lifetime paper pusher,” when he spoke to the FBI.

Mr. Miller told the jury Kuznetsov wanted them to believe Yakovlev was “such a great stock picker that he can accumulate enough money on an offshore account to both retire early and to float a friend a $300,000 no interest loan.”

Defense lawyer Steven G. Kobre told jurors the government’s evidence “makes no sense.”

“Is there evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that a man who gets a loan from a friend to build his home knew that his friend was involved in some sort of criminal activity? I submit to you that the answer is no, not even close,” Kobre said.

Kuznetsov was appointed to the General Assembly’s powerful Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budget Questions in 1999. The budget oversight committee then elected him chairman.

A budget expert and career diplomat, he worked at both the Soviet and Russian U.N. Missions from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, and then on Russian delegations to various U.N. and international bodies including the Council of Europe, mainly dealing with budget issues.

In 2005, the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said it found “persuasive evidence” that Yakovlev took kickbacks from companies that had won some $79 million in U.N. contracts.

It said it had found $1.3 million had been wired to a bank account in Antigua, West Indies, in the name of Moxyco Ltd.

Prosecutors said Kuznetsov in 2000 established his own offshore company to hide the transfer of criminal proceeds from the procurement officer’s offshore bank account to himself.

Sentencing was scheduled for June 25.