BREAKING: Former DEI Director CHARGED with Multimillion dollar fraud and kickback scheme

Linda Sun, the former aide to Gov. Hochul and ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused of working as a Chinese agent, also schemed to steer $35 million in state contracts to two PPE vendors run by a cousin and her husband at the height of the COVID pandemic, according to new court filings.Sun, 41, and her husband, Chris Hu, 40, were hit with the new allegations in a superseding indictment filed in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday.

Sun, who was working as Cuomo’s deputy chief diversity officer in 2020, was coordinating an effort to buy personal protective equipment and ventilators from China at the start of the pandemic, when the U.S. was grappling with PPE shortages.The Chinese government recommended several vendors, and Sun falsely added two companies to that list of recommendations, one run by a second cousin, the other by Hu, according to the indictment.

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She falsely claimed that both companies were recommended by the Chinese government, and on March 21, 2020, altered an email she received from a Jiangsu province official, adding her cousin’s surgical mask business, the feds allege.A few days later, she sent an email to New York State procurement officials titled, “Already VERIFIED by Linda Sun,” telling them the company “came recommended by Jiangsu Chamber of Commerce” and that its surgical mask was the “gold standard,” according to the indictment.

She feds also found an internal state document on a computer owned by Sun and Hu that tracked PPE contracts, asking for each, “why did we do business with this vendor?” according to the indictment. The line for Hu’s company read, “referred by Chinese chamber of commerce” — but that referral was a fiction, according to the indictment.

Sun and Hu got $2.3 million in kickbacks for her efforts, the feds allege.In all, the state wired the two PPE companies almost $45 million between March and June 2020. The feds found a spreadsheet in one of Hu’s electronic accounts that estimated he and Sun would score $8 million in profits from the deals, including the kickbacks, according to the indictment.

“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 Joseph Nocella said Thursday. “We demand better from our public servants, and this office will continue to hold accountable public officials who enrich themselves at the expense of the New York taxpayers.”

Sun was already charged in September with working as an agent of China during her time in state government and accused of helping shape state policy in exchange for millions in kickbacks and gifts — including specially cooked salted ducks for her parents.She was initially charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling and money laundering conspiracy, while her husband was charged with money laundering conspiracy, as well as conspiracy to commit bank fraud and misuse of means of identification.

The new charges include wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit offenses against the U.S. and tax evasion. Sun and Hu are slated to be arraigned on the new charges Monday.The indictment comes after a June 16 hearing during which Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Brian Cogan pressed prosecutors to file their superseding indictment “within a couple of weeks,” so that Sun and Hu’s defense lawyers could get documents and evidence through the discovery process as soon as possible. The couple’s trial date was initially set for July, but delays over classified material clearances have stalled that schedule.

“I am trying this case in the fall one way or another,” Cogan said, setting a new trial date of Nov. 3. “Or it’s never going to happen. Ever.”

Sun and Hu’s lawyers called the new charges a desperate attempt to keep the case on track.

“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,” Sun’s lawyer, Jarrod Schaeffer, said Thursday.