Former NY government aide accused of being a spy for China

A former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been charged with acting as an agent of the Chinese government, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace announced Tuesday (3).

Linda Sun, Hochul’s former deputy chief of staff and a Cuomo aide, was charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling and conspiracy to launder money, according to an unsealed copy of the indictment.

Her husband and co-defendant, Chris Hu, was also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, as well as misuse of identification, prosecutors said.

Sun acted as “an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government while her husband, Hu, facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars in bribes for personal gain,” prosecutors said in a news release.

Sun and Hu were arrested at their Long Island residence on Tuesday morning.

Sun and Hu pleaded not guilty to all charges in federal court Tuesday afternoon. Sun’s bail is set at $1.5 million and her husband’s at $500,000. Both will have their travel limited to New York City, Long Island, Maine and New Hampshire.

During the hearing, prosecutors alleged that the defendants used shell companies, iCloud accounts and WeChat messages — all in Mandarin — in their alleged crimes.

Defense attorney Seth DuCharme addressed reporters outside the courthouse Tuesday, saying “we have a lot of confidence in our case.”

“Many of the allegations in this indictment are frankly disconcerting and overly inflammatory,” he said. “As you heard in court today, we look forward to our day in court. The defendants are exercising their right to a speedy trial as soon as possible; we have great confidence in Chris and Linda.”

A Sun lawyer, Jarrod Schaeffer, told CNN that the accusations “are inflammatory and appear to be the product of an overly aggressive prosecution.”

“We are also concerned about aspects of the government’s investigation. As we said in court today, our client is eager … to defend himself against these charges in the appropriate forum — a court of law,” Schaeffer said.

The defendants’ next status conference is scheduled for September 25.

Sun has held a variety of government positions for more than a decade. Public employment records and his LinkedIn profile show positions spread across a variety of agencies focused on economic development, labor and the New York City Executive Chamber.

In 2009, Sun was hired as chief of staff to Assemblywoman Grace Meng when Meng was in the State Assembly. Then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration then hired Sun in 2012, naming her director of Asian American affairs and representing Queens. Sun then became director of external affairs for Empire State Development, which oversees economic development statewide. In 2018, the Cuomo administration rehired her, naming her chief diversity officer; she later took a job with the state’s Department of Financial Services.

After Hochul was promoted to the state’s top job in 2021, Sun was hired as deputy chief of staff, serving for about a year before taking on the role of deputy commissioner for strategic affairs at the Department of Labor, which ends in March 2023.

The 2023 firing came after the governor’s office uncovered “evidence of misconduct,” Hochul’s press secretary, Avi Small, said in a statement. to CNN without going into details about the misconduct.

“(We) immediately reported his actions to authorities and assisted authorities throughout this process,” Small said.

Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Cuomo, said in a statement that national security “must be free from foreign influence. While Ms. Sun was promoted to deputy chief of staff in the subsequent administration, during our time she worked across a handful of agencies and was one of many community liaisons who had little to no interaction with the governor.”

Money laundering and grilled ducks

Sun violated internal state government rules and protocols to benefit the Chinese government, according to court documents.

Among Sun’s activities, prosecutors say, was that she served as an undisclosed agent of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, acting at their behest and engaging in political activities to advance the interests of the CCP.

The indictment details an effort by Sun to obtain “unauthorized letters of invitation” from the governor’s office, which were then used to facilitate travel by PRC government officials to the United States for meetings with state officials in New York.

Sun’s unauthorized letters included false statements about immigration documents and “induced foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally,” prosecutors wrote.

Prosecutors also allege she tried to “facilitate travel” to China for an unnamed high-level New York politician.

Sun and her husband received “substantial economic and other benefits,” which included millions of dollars in transactions for Hu’s business activities in China, travel benefits, event tickets, employment for Sun’s cousin in China, and a delivery of “Nanjing-style salted ducks prepared by the personal chef of an official of the People’s Republic of China” that were then delivered to Sun’s parents’ residence, among other things, according to the indictment.

They also laundered the proceeds to buy real estate in New York and Hawaii and several luxury vehicles, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors allege Sun blocked Taiwanese diplomacy

Sun is accused of acting at the behest of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party to prevent Taiwan government officials from having access to state government officials because she knew that CCP officials “were opposed to such diplomacy,” according to court documents.

Prosecutors also said that while the governor’s office did not have a position on recognizing Taiwan, Sun used his position to change “Cuomo and Hochul’s messaging on issues important to the PRC and the CCP” and helped minimize interactions between the governor’s office and representatives from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the U.S. Also known as TECO, the office serves as the de facto, though unofficial, embassy in Taiwan. TECO maintains offices providing consular and other services in several U.S. cities, including New York.

Court documents show that Sun used his position to block small displays of diplomacy. In January 2020, a TECO representative wrote a letter to Cuomo informing him of the latest results of Taiwan’s presidential election and requesting that a congratulatory message be sent to Taipei. After a staffer in the governor’s office flagged the request to Sun, she quickly blocked the attempt, responding: “No letter; it would trigger a political firestorm.”

As the pandemic reached New York, Sun was working behind the scenes to give Chinese officials access to state government officials, prosecutors say. In one instance, prosecutors say Sun added a Chinese official to a “private New York State government conference on the health response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the government’s response to the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans.” The call was not open to the public.

As the pandemic spread, court documents say, Sun worked to ensure that Cuomo publicly praised Chinese authorities for sending medical equipment to the city while also blocking Taiwan, which was also seeking public recognition for providing 200,000 masks at the height of the pandemic that was ravaging New York.

In April 2020, a Chinese government official informed Sun that several Chinese foundations would donate 1,000 ventilators to the Greater New York Hospital Association, according to the indictment. In return, Sun told the official that Cuomo would call him to thank him for the donation. After waiting two hours for the call, the official complained that he had not yet heard from Cuomo. Sun apologized and said Cuomo would thank him publicly and on social media for facilitating the donation, which was scheduled to arrive in New York the following day, according to the indictment.

Cuomo is not identified by name in the indictment, but his tenure as governor aligns with the timeline of the charges.

An archived X-post shows that Cuomo posted a thank-you message from his government account the next day.

“We finally received some good news today. The Chinese government helped facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will arrive at JFK today. I thank the Chinese government, Jack Ma, Joe Tsai, the Jack Ma Foundation, the Tsai Foundation, and Consul General Huang,” the post reads.

Hochul says she is furious and ‘absolutely shocked’

Hochul is furious, outraged and “absolutely shocked at how brazen” Sun’s behavior was, the governor said in an appearance Tuesday night on WNYC radio.

“It was a betrayal of trust,” Hochul told WNYC of the allegations against Sun.

Hochul said his office fired Sun in 2023 “at the time we discovered some levels of misconduct” and “alerted authorities — and so we ended up with what happened here today.”

When WNYC asked Hochul for details on why Sun was fired, the governor declined to provide specifics, citing the authorities’ investigation. The depth of the allegations against Sun became apparent to the governor and her staff only after reading the details of the indictment, Hochul said, emphasizing to WNYC that Sun had only worked for her administration for 15 months and had initially been hired by the previous administration.

This content was originally published in Former NY government aide accused of being a spy for China on the CNN Brasil website.

Source: CNN Brasil