A former top aide to New York Governor Kathy Hochul has been charged with acting as an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government and laundering millions of dollars for China, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said on Tuesday in an indictment that also accused several officials in Beijing’s New York City consulate as co-conspirators.
Prosecutors said Linda Sun, a naturalised US citizen born in China, was arrested in the morning at her home in Long Island and pleaded not guilty in US District Court in Brooklyn later in the day. Sun’s husband Chris Hu – a business owner and also a naturalised US citizen originally from China – also faces criminal charges and pleaded not guilty.
Sun was released on a US$1.5 million bond, and Hu was released on a US$500,000 bond.
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While working for about a decade in the administrations of Hochul and former Governor Andrew Cuomo before her, Sun, 41, blocked representatives of Taiwan’s government from meeting state officials, and tried to arrange for a high-level New York state official to visit China, according to the indictment filed last month and unsealed on Tuesday.
Prosecutors accused Sun, who served as Hochul’s deputy chief of staff for about a year, of “changing [the Hochul administration’s] messaging regarding issues of importance to the PRC and the CCP”, using the acronyms for the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party, respectively.
“Sun repeatedly violated internal rules and protocols within the ... governor’s office to provide improper benefits to PRC and CCP representatives, including by providing unauthorised invitation letters from the office of the ... governor that were used to facilitate travel by PRC government officials into the United States for meetings with [New York] government officials,” it added.
In exchange, prosecutors said that Chinese government representatives facilitated millions of dollars in transactions for Hu, who had business activities in China.
The couple allegedly used the money to buy a 2024 Ferrari Roma sports car as well as property on New York’s Long Island and in Honolulu together worth about US$6 million.
Other gifts included Nanjing-style salted ducks prepared by a Chinese government official’s personal chef and delivered to the home of Sun’s parents, prosecutors said.
One co-conspirator in the indictment is another naturalised US citizen from China, who allegedly led a non-profit association “closely associated with the United Front Work Department”.
Another co-conspirator is a legal permanent resident who prosecutors say maintained active business interests in Shandong Province and “served as principal of numerous US-based Chinese organizations”.
The indictment also identified four individuals working in China’s New York consulate, including two “high-ranking” Chinese government officials, as working with Sun to accomplish objectives that included the blocking of engagements between Hochul’s office and Taiwanese officials.
It quoted a message from Sun to one of the consular officials as saying: “Just FYI for you, the Taipei economic office is trying to secure [an unnamed official in Hochul’s office] for an event in DC. ... They sent the invitation to another colleague trying to bypass me. I am working on it right now to resolve the issue.”
The document did not accuse Hochul of any wrongdoing.
The Chinese consulate in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Seth DuCharme, a lawyer for Sun, and Ken Abell, a lawyer for Hu, did not immediately return voicemails and emails seeking comment on the charges.
Avi Small, a representative for Hochul, said Sun was hired more than a decade ago during the Cuomo administration and later fired.
“We terminated her employment in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct, immediately reported her actions to law enforcement and have assisted law enforcement throughout this process,” Small said in a statement.
Breon Peace, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, alleges in the 63-page indictment that Sun “repeatedly violated internal rules and protocols” of the governor’s office to “provide improper benefits” to China and the Communist Party.
That includes providing unauthorised invitations from the governor’s office that were used by Chinese officials in the US to have meetings with the state.
The couple’s home, on Long Island’s north shore, was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July, said John Marzulli, a spokesman for Peace.
Sun faces eight counts, including failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money-laundering conspiracy. Hu faces two counts, including bank fraud conspiracy.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg
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