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N.Y. Official Charged With Taking Money, Travel and Poultry to Aid China
Linda Sun, who worked for both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was accused of using her position to benefit the Chinese government.
transcript
New York Official Is Charged as Chinese Agent
Linda Sun, a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul, was charged with 10 criminal counts that included visa fraud, money laundering and other crimes.
“Linda, what do you have to say to the allegations?” “We have a lot of confidence in our case. A lot of the allegations in this indictment are, frankly, perplexing, overly inflammatory.”
In July 2021, six Nanjing-style salted ducks, prepared by a Chinese consulate official’s private chef, were delivered to the parents of an aide to New York’s then governor, Andrew M. Cuomo. About four months later, another six ducks arrived at their home. Another four months later, there were more salted ducks. Eight months after that: still more salted ducks.
Prosecutors say that the poultry shipments, described in a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday, were just a small part of a yearslong series of payoffs to the aide, Linda Sun, in exchange for actions that benefited the People’s Republic of China and its Communist Party. The 65-page indictment also described travel benefits, event tickets and the promotion of a close friend’s freight business with a headquarters in Queens.
Prosecutors say that Ms. Sun blocked Taiwanese officials from having access to the governor’s office, eliminated references to Taiwan from state communications and quashed meetings between Taiwanese officials and state leaders, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, who succeeded Mr. Cuomo and who promoted Ms. Sun to deputy chief of staff.
She also ensured that state officials did not publicly address the persecution of Uyghurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic group that for more than a thousand years has lived in a region of what is now China, prosecutors said.
Ms. Sun, 40, was charged on Tuesday with 10 criminal counts that included visa fraud, money laundering and other crimes. Her husband, Chris Hu, 41, a businessman, is charged in the indictment with money laundering.
Both pleaded not guilty in federal court, were released on bond and were required to surrender their passports.
Linda Sun’s lawyer, Jarrod Schaeffer, said that Ms. Sun was looking forward to addressing the indictment in court. “Our client is understandably upset that these charges have been brought,” Mr. Schaeffer said.
The accusations, if true, would represent a brazen manipulation of New York State government at the highest level, covering several years of the administrations of Ms. Hochul and Mr. Cuomo, both Democrats.
Avi Small, the press secretary for Ms. Hochul, said that Ms. Sun “was hired by the executive chamber more than a decade ago,” adding that Hochul administration officials “immediately reported her actions to law enforcement and have assisted law enforcement throughout this process.”
He said that the administration “terminated her employment in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct.”
The charges are the latest in the Justice Department’s initiative — driven especially in recent years by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn — to stop efforts by the Chinese government to wield its influence secretly across the United States.
Last month, Shujun Wang, 75, a Queens man who billed himself as a democracy activist and scholar, was convicted in Brooklyn federal court of acting as a spy for the Chinese Communist Party. Last summer, prosecutors won a case in the same court against three men who stalked a family in New Jersey on behalf of the Chinese government. In another case, two men were accused of running a secret police station for China in a Lower Manhattan building.
The push by prosecutors comes as escalating tensions between the United States and China over wars, trade and technology have damaged their diplomatic relationship. China’s claims over portions of the South China Sea and the island of Taiwan have been bitterly disputed and were at the center of the allegations against Ms. Sun on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy, Liu Pengyu, said in a statement that he was not aware of the specific details of the case. He added: “But in recent years, the U.S. government and media have frequently hyped up the so-called ‘Chinese agents’ narratives, many of which have later been proven untrue. China requires its citizens overseas to comply with the laws and regulations of the host country, and we firmly oppose the groundlessly slandering and smearing targeting China.”
Ms. Sun served as a deputy chief of staff to Ms. Hochul after holding a series of state government positions. In those jobs, according to the indictment, she used her sway to steer state officials away from actions that could have implied support for Taiwan. Nationalists established their own government on the island in 1949 after a civil war, and the People’s Republic of China has laid claim to it ever since.
“No meeting please,” she wrote to an Assembly member who had invited the governor to meet with the ambassador of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. “Kindly decline. Do not want her to wade into this China/Taiwan sensitivity.”
Prosecutors also accused Ms. Sun of providing unauthorized invitation letters from the governor’s office to make it easier for Chinese government officials to travel to the United States and meet with state officials in New York.
She even arranged, without proper authorization, for Chinese government officials to receive official proclamations, formal framed documents that bear the state seal and the governor’s signature. While these declarations hold little real meaning, some foreign officials hold them in high esteem.
In 2019, Tsai Ing-wen, who was then president of Taiwan, stopped in New York City during a visit to the United States. The Chinese government was opposed to Ms. Tsai’s visit, even asking the United States government not to permit it.
Taiwanese officials invited Ms. Sun and Mr. Cuomo to a banquet, prosecutors said. However, Ms. Sun never forwarded the invitation and instead told the Taiwanese officials that Mr. Cuomo was hosting an activity day for staff members in the Catskills.
“I already blocked it,” Ms. Sun wrote to a Chinese government official, according to the indictment.
On the day of the banquet, Ms. Sun joined leaders of local Chinese associations in a protest in Manhattan against Ms. Tsai, according to prosecutors.
In 2021, federal prosecutors said, Ms. Sun allowed a Chinese government official to “shape the content” of public remarks by Ms. Hochul and ensured that she “did not publicly address the detention of Uyghurs in PRC state-run camps in Xinjiang Province.”
Among the benefits Ms. Sun received, according to the indictment, were the assistance with millions of dollars in transactions for China-based businesses tied to Mr. Hu; travel benefits; tickets to events such as a performance by the Chinese National Traditional Orchestra at Carnegie Hall; the promotion of the Queens freight business; and employment for Ms. Sun’s cousin in China.
Prosecutors say Ms. Sun and Mr. Hu laundered the money they received to buy, among other things, their $3.6 million, five-bedroom home on a cul-de-sac in Manhasset, on the North Shore of Long Island; a $1.9 million condominium in Honolulu; and luxury cars, including a 2024 Ferrari.
Six weeks ago, F.B.I. agents descended on the cul-de-sac in Manhasset and searched the couple’s house in an early-morning raid.
The indictment accuses Ms. Sun of failing to disclose benefits from the Chinese government or the Chinese Communist Party to the government in New York, as she was required to do under law.
Ms. Sun worked in state government for nearly 14 years, holding a variety of positions in the administrations of Mr. Cuomo and Ms. Hochul, according to her LinkedIn profile. She began in the legislative branch, working as chief of staff to an assemblywoman, Grace Meng, who is now a congresswoman.
Robert G. Ortt, the Senate Republican leader, said Tuesday that Ms. Sun’s employment had been “an alarming security failure” and asked for an investigation to establish who should be held accountable.
Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said Ms. Sun had held only minor positions when Mr. Cuomo was governor. “While Ms. Sun was promoted to deputy chief of staff in the subsequent administration, during our time she worked in a handful of agencies and was one of many community liaisons who had little to no interaction with the governor,” he said.
Ms. Sun held jobs focused on business development, Asian American affairs and diversity, equity and inclusion. She left Ms. Hochul’s executive chamber after roughly 15 months, moving on to a position at the New York Department of Labor in November 2022. Five months later, she left to serve as campaign manager for Austin Cheng, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for a congressional seat on Long Island.
Even after Ms. Sun was let go by the Labor Department in March 2023, she continued to attend public and professional Asian community events, falsely claiming to be the department’s deputy commissioner, according to the indictment. Ms. Sun apparently stopped doing so after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the Labor Department that August.
Ms. Sun’s husband, Mr. Hu, operates a liquor store in Flushing, Queens, called Leivine Wine & Spirits. Over the past decade, he has incorporated several other businesses, including a company he created in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic called Medical Supplies USA. He also created two other businesses, Golden Capital Group in 2016 and LCA Holdings in 2023, the nature of which could not be determined.
Outside Brooklyn federal court on Tuesday, lawyers for Ms. Sun and Mr. Hu addressed a pool of reporters, saying that they had confidence in the strength of the defense case.
“A number of the allegations in the indictment are, frankly, inflammatory, perplexing,” said Seth DuCharme, who represents Mr. Hu.
During the hearing, prosecutors described what they said was a complex set of evidence, much of it in Mandarin. Alex Solomon, an assistant U.S. attorney, said the couple “operated a multitude of shell entities,” including “more than 80 different accounts.”
“This is no ordinary financial fraud,” Mr. Solomon said.
Benjamin Oreskes, Jay Root and Olivia Bensimon contributed reporting.
An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of Linda Sun’s lawyer. It is Jarrod Schaeffer, not Jerrod Schaeffer.
An earlier version of this article misstated who was New York governor when salted ducks were delivered to the parents of an aide to the governor. It was Andrew M. Cuomo, not Kathy Hochul; Ms. Hochul became governor the following month.
How we handle corrections
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York region. More about Hurubie Meko
William K. Rashbaum is a Times reporter covering municipal and political corruption, the courts and broader law enforcement topics in New York. More about William K. Rashbaum
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