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BROOKLYN (CN) — Federal prosecutors say a former aide to New York Governors Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul ran a pandemic-era fraud scheme, taking kickbacks while steering millions in contracts to her husband and cousin.
The charges appear in a superseding indictment filed late Wednesday against Linda Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, who were previously charged with secretly working for the Chinese government in exchange for millions in property and perks.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Sun helped source personal protective equipment from around the world. Prosecutors say she used that role to steer deals to a China-based company run by her second cousin and another company tied to Hu and his business partner.
“When masks, gloves, and other protective supplies were hard to find, Sun abused her position of trust to steer contracts to her associates so that she and her husband could share in the profits," U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Joseph Nocella Jr. said Thursday in a statement announcing the new charges.
Sun didn’t disclose the family ties, and in addition to profiting from the company Hu co-ran, the couple took kickbacks that constituted taxable income Hu did not report, the superseder says.
Under the initially charged scheme, prosecutors say Sun facilitated communications between New York state officers and Chinese government officials; organized Chinese government officials’ visits to the U.S.; and blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from access to high-level New York State officers.
Most of the events occurred during Governor Cuomo’s administration, who resigned in disgrace in 2021, facing a slate of sexual harassment allegations, and on Tuesday conceded a stunning mayoral Democratic primary race to progressive state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
The allegations include Sun covertly adding a Chinese government official to a call concerning the health response to the pandemic.
In exchange for her actions, prosecutors say Sun received a $4.1 million real estate property in New York, a $2.1 million condominium in Honolulu, a 2024 Ferrari and even Nanjing-style salted ducks prepared by a Chinese government official’s personal chef.
The couple pleaded not guilty to Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, bank fraud and money laundering counts. The new indictment adds charges of honest services wire fraud, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Hu is also charged with tax evasion.
Sun is out on a $1.5 million bond, Hu on a $500,000 bond, and both have travel restrictions.
Jarrod Schaeffer of the firm Abell Eskew Landau represents Sun. He said his client vehemently denies the allegations and cast the new filing as indicative of a “scrambling” prosecutorial office.
“Scrambling to develop new theories and shoving new charges into an indictment as trial looms is both unfortunate and telling, but it is also unsurprising given how this case has proceeded and the government’s recent efforts to further delay trial in this case,” Schaeffer said in a statement.
At a hearing on June 16, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan expressed his own disappointment at having to push the start of trial, at the request of the government, from July to November.
“I am trying this case in the fall, one way or another,” Cogan said. “It’s going to happen, or it’s not happening ever.”
The George W. Bush-appointed judge urged the government to speed up discovery and the anticipated superseding indictment, which Schaeffer now says Sun will fight vigorously.
“The newest allegations continue the government’s trend of making and publicizing feverish accusations unmoored from the facts and evidence that we expect will actually come out at trial,” Schaeffer said.
Hu is represented by Seth DuCharme of Bracewell, a former acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who echoed Schaeffer’s “scrambling” characterization in his own statement.
“It’s been apparent over the last few months that the government has been scrambling to try to come up with a new charging theory. The superseding indictment comes as no surprise. We remain confident in Chris,” DuCharme said, adding, “We don’t expect the trial date to change.”
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