“More Power” to Help “My Native Country”: How Linda Sun’s Own Messages Anchor New York's Landmark United Front Trial

Jurors have seen how Sun boasted that Hochul was “more obedient” than Cuomo, sought “more power” to help “my native country,” and allegedly forged state letters as Chinese cash flowed.

U.S. government photos of Linda Sun’s car garage on Long Island.

BROOKLYN — As lawyers deliver closing arguments today for Linda Sun and Chris Hu — the New York couple accused of building a small empire by laundering millions of dollars from Chinese proxies, monetizing Sun’s access to governors Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo, and advancing Beijing’s United Front interference agenda — jurors will be weighing a barrage of late-stage evidence the U.S. government says exposes a “clear pattern of corruption.”

Over the past week, prosecutors formally rested their case after calling more than 30 witnesses in the month-long trial.

Their final stretch focused on three themes: a 2023 internal probe that found Sun lying with confidence before she was dismissed; Sun’s own text messages to a Chinese official describing her efforts inside New York’s government to “give me more power and … help my native country”; and detailed financial records that, according to prosecutors, trace kickbacks from pandemic contracts and Chinese business deals into a portfolio of luxury properties, cars and perks.

Jurors heard from Thomas Collery, former investigative counsel in the New York State Inspector General’s Office, who described a 2023 interview that he reportedly called the beginning of the end of Sun’s state career. By that point, Sun had moved from Hochul’s staff to the Labor Department but, according to Collery, continued to act as if she were still empowered to order framed gubernatorial proclamations — ceremonial documents signed by the governor — for family members and the Chinese consulate.

In the recorded interview played in court, Sun told investigators, “I don’t request proclamations now.” Collery testified that she began to look “sweaty and nervous” as he confronted her with emails showing that she had, in fact, continued to request proclamations she no longer had authority to obtain.

“It was notable to us that she confidently lied,” Collery recalled, according to Courthouse News, adding that she seemed believable “except I knew she was lying.”

She was terminated from state employment shortly afterward, but the paper trail suggested a mutually beneficial scheme of empowering Chinese officials and proxies within the United Front system that Sun herself was becoming an “exemplar” in, according to Beijing’s monitors.

The government also introduced new physical exhibits meant to cement what had previously been a largely abstract allegation: that Sun was prized inside Beijing’s United Front Work Department, the Chinese Communist Party arm tasked with cultivating “overseas Chinese” influence networks.

According to a court report from NTD, prosecutors showed jurors a glossy “who’s who” booklet from the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese — an organization operating under the United Front system — that featured Sun as a highlighted example of a successful overseas liaison. They also displayed a small blue address book, roughly four by six inches, containing headshots and contact details of overseas attendees at United Front–linked conferences, including their positions abroad, home addresses and personal email accounts.

From an international perspective, it appears the Brooklyn jury may be the first Western adjudicators to see, in open court, such a detailed portrait of what Chinese influence experts describe as an international United Front playbook: cultivating diaspora figures and leveraging them against their adopted homelands in favor of what Beijing promotes as the “motherland.”

The booklet and address book were presented alongside event badges and travel records from United Front conferences in China where Sun appeared as a speaker. One conference, prosecutors noted, included a stay in a Beijing presidential suite previously used by former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama — hospitality arranged, they say, by a Chinese agent who was simultaneously assisting Hu’s business dealings.

The United Front documents were paired with WeChat messages that prosecutors say reveal Sun’s own view of her role. In an April 2020 exchange highlighted by NTD, Sun thanked Consul General Huang Ping for publicly praising her in front of the governor.

“This way it will give me more power and also I can help my native country to do more things,” she wrote, according to messages read in court.

Taken together, the new exhibits give jurors a concrete sense of how, in the government’s telling, Sun was woven into a curated network of overseas influencers cultivated by Beijing’s foreign-interference machinery.

Huang responded that she was “outstanding,” and Sun replied that she hoped to be as capable as him in future. The jury had already digested explosive evidence spotlighted prominently in New York Post front-page trial reports: Sun’s boasting that Hochul was “much more obedient” than Cuomo after she steered the lieutenant governor into recording a Lunar New Year greeting tailored to consulate talking points; and her behind-the-scenes work to strip any mention of Xinjiang and Uyghur human-rights abuses from that video.

In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Solomon told jurors those communications showed Sun worked for the Chinese government, not the people of New York state, framing his broader claim that she was selling out New Yorkers for the benefit of Beijing and herself.

“Linda Sun betrayed the state of New York to enrich herself,” and “she did the bidding of the Chinese government so that she and her husband, Chris Hu, could get rich,” Solomon said.

“She was a valuable asset for the PRC Consulate, which is China’s diplomatic facility here in New York City,” he continued, and “she secretly made sure that Taiwan’s representatives here in New York City couldn’t get anywhere near the governor’s office, and bragged repeatedly to her handlers in the Chinese government about what a good asset she had been.”

The U.S. prosecutor continued to allege that Sun “worked for the Henan Provincial government, forging invitation letters and illegally bringing in Henan delegations to meet with top leaders in New York State government, including then–Lieutenant Governor Hochul.”

“All the while,” Solomon charged, “middlemen from the Henan Provincial government worked to provide Chris Hu’s business with access to the Chinese market, and the PRC Consulate showered Linda Sun and Chris Hu with benefits, treating her like the valuable asset that she was.”

On the money trail, prosecutors used new testimony and exhibits to sharpen their portrait of what they say was a sophisticated kickback and laundering scheme. A government forensic accountant walked jurors through an internal spreadsheet tied to High Hope, a Jiangsu-based company associated with Sun’s husband, Chris Hu.

New York State, the witness said, entered into roughly US$12 million in PPE contracts with High Hope as the pandemic hit. Hu’s spreadsheet, shown in court, calculated expected profits of more than US$6 million on those contracts after costs and shipping — and then split that profit down the middle between Hu and his cousin and business partner, Henry Hua. One cell was labelled along the lines of “Henry owes me,” where Hu allegedly tracked payments flowing back from the Chinese side.

According to the same account, prosecutors told jurors that Hua and his company Constar used multiple channels to route money back into Hu-controlled accounts through third parties, in a pattern they say matches classic money-laundering typologies.

Those funds, along with earlier Chinese-side transfers routed through Hu’s uncle and various shell entities, have already been linked at trial to all-cash purchases of a roughly US$3.6-million Long Island mansion and a US$2-million Hawaii condominium, as well as a Ferrari Roma and other luxuries.

In Tuesday’s closing argument, the U.S. prosecutor Solomon leaned heavily into lifestyle evidence and coded messages to argue that Sun’s loyalty was to cash — an argument that, according to Texas criminal-defense attorney Samuel Bassett, in a previous interview with The Bureau, would likely sway the New York jury.

“Linda Sun was all about the money,” he told jurors, pointing them to a photograph of Sun’s iPhone case emblazoned with the words “Get Rich. Good Luck.”

He then walked the jury through messages where, according to Courthouse News, Hu referred to laundered kickback cash as “apples” — a term the government says he used while moving PPE profits through the banking system — and highlighted evidence that Sun was accused of forging Hochul’s signature “time after time after time” on invitation letters used by Chinese officials to obtain U.S. visas.

Solomon also returned to a series of now-famous food texts.

Jurors have already seen messages in which Sun asked Huang Ping for Nanjing-style salted duck, prepared by his personal chef, describing how much she enjoyed the delicacy and, in other exchanges, requesting enough for extended family gatherings.

At the high-consequence trial’s opening, Bassett, the Austin criminal-defense lawyer, told The Bureau that if prosecutors can tie the seized luxuries — and perks such as a Chinese official’s personal chef allegedly preparing Nanjing-style salted duck for Sun’s parents — to undeclared income or bribe streams, they will likely secure a conviction in the jury room. Jurors, he told The Bureau, “tend to hang their hat on evidence such as purchases of large dollar items, and extravagant expenses that aren’t readily explained.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with full quotes from U.S. Prosecutor Solomon.