In July 2021, six Nanjing-style salted ducks, prepared by a Chinese consulate official’s private chef, were delivered to the New York home where the parents of a senior aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul lived. About four months later, another six ducks arrived. 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 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 business.
Prosecutors say that Ms. Sun blocked Taiwanese officials from accessing the governor’s office, interceded to eliminate references to Taiwan from state communications and quashed meetings between Taiwanese officials and state leaders, including Ms. Hochul. 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 required to surrender their passports.
Linda Sun’s lawyer, Jerrod 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’s state government at the highest level, covering several years of the administrations of Ms. Hochul and her predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, both Democrats.
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 control its diaspora through intimidation and harassment.
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 the Chinese government in a building in Lower Manhattan.
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.
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 state proclamations, formal framed documents that bear the state seal and the governor’s signature. While these declarations hold little to no real meaning, they are held in high esteem by some foreign officials.
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 an unnamed politician to a banquet, prosecutors said, during a period when she worked for Governor Cuomo’s administration. However, Ms. Sun never forwarded the invitation and instead told the Taiwanese officials that the politician 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 an unnamed politician and acted to ensure 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; event tickets; the promotion of a close friend’s freight business with a headquarters in Queens; 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.
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.
Efforts to reach China’s embassy for comment were unsuccessful Tuesday.
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 the administration “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.”
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.
Ms. Sun has worked in state government for nearly 14 years, holding a variety of positions, 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. Ms. Sun then worked in various positions in the administrations of both Mr. Cuomo and Ms. Hochul, according to the LinkedIn profile.
Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said that, “national security is critical and 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 in a handful of agencies and was one of many community liaisons who had little to no interaction with the governor.”
Ms. Sun served in roles 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 coronavirus 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.
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