Linda Sun, a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, faces new allegations related to charges that she used her position to benefit the Chinese government, according to a superseding indictment against Ms. Sun and her husband unsealed Tuesday.
Ms. Sun, who served as the governor’s deputy chief of staff, is accused of bribery and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to the indictment, unsealed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn. While the indictment does not include new criminal charges against Ms. Sun, prosecutors charged her husband, Chris Hu, with three new counts of money laundering.
Both defendants pleaded not guilty during a hearing Tuesday before Judge Brian M. Cogan, who suggested he would hold another hearing in two months to set a trial date.
A lawyer for Ms. Sun, Jarrod L. Schaeffer, said that the new indictment did not “remedy critical errors already identified in the prior indictment.” Seth DuCharme, a lawyer for Mr. Hu, said that the new charges were not a surprise and that they didn’t “add much” to the case.
In September, federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York charged Mr. Hu with money laundering and Ms. Sun with 10 criminal counts, including money laundering, visa fraud and failing to register as a foreign agent. Prosecutors accused Ms. Sun, who also worked for Governor Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, of discreetly acting as an agent for Beijing, using her government position to benefit the Chinese Communist Party.
According to prosecutors, Ms. Sun accepted lavish gifts — including repeated shipments of salted ducks — in exchange for removing references to Taiwan from New York State communications, blocking Taiwanese officials from the governor’s office and stopping those officials from meeting with state leaders.
Ms. Sun also used her role to ensure that Ms. Hochul did not publicly discuss the plight of the Uyghurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic group in China that has faced persecution from the Communist Party, prosecutors said.
Justice Department officials, particularly prosecutors in the Eastern District, have cracked down in recent years on Beijing’s clandestine efforts to influence U.S. policy and suppress dissidents. In August, Shujun Wang, a Queens man, was convicted of spying on Chinese dissidents. In December, a man pleaded guilty to running a secret police outpost in Manhattan on behalf of the Chinese government.
Pam Bondi, President Trump’s newly confirmed attorney general, issued a memo last week calling on prosecutors to tamp down their enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which has been used to target Chinese influence-peddling. Prosecutors in recent years have used the law to charge people, including Ms. Sun and Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, with secretly working on behalf of foreign governments.
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