A federal judge declared a mistrial Monday in the corruption case against a former top aide to Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and her predecessor, former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked and could not reach a verdict.
Federal officials arrested Linda Sun — a former aide to Hochul — and her husband, Chris Hu, in Sept. 2024 on allegations that they acted on behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, the U.S. attorney’s office announced. A federal jury in Brooklyn failed to reach a unanimous verdict Monday on all 19 counts against Sun and Hu, prompting U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan to declare a mistrial, according to The Associated Press.
The jury foreperson told the court the panel remained split after extensive deliberations, even after an alternate juror replaced a panelist who left due to prior travel commitments. Prosecutors said they intend to retry the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Solomon told the court the government plans to move forward immediately.
The case capped a nearly monthlong trial tied to a broader U.S. Department of Justice effort to expose covert foreign influence operations targeting U.S. politics and dissidents abroad. Prosecutors charged Sun with acting as an unregistered agent of China, visa fraud, money laundering and related offenses. They charged Hu with money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion. Both defendants faced joint counts of wire fraud, bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Sun, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in China, built a roughly 15-year career in the New York State government. She served as deputy chief of staff to Hochul and previously held senior roles under Cuomo when he was governor. The Hochul administration fired Sun in 2023 after discovering what it called misconduct.
At trial, prosecutors said Sun shaped state messaging to mirror Chinese government priorities. They pointed to emails and text messages showing efforts to block contact between Taiwan’s representatives and the governor’s office, including an instance in which Sun derailed an invitation for Cuomo to meet Taiwan’s president during a U.S. visit.
Sun’s arrest followed an FBI raid on the couple’s $3.5 million Long Island home in July 2024, when agents executed a search warrant obtained by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn at the residence of Sun. Prosecutors further alleged Sun pressed officials to remove references to the Uighurs—a persecuted Muslim minority in China—from official statements and forged Hochul’s signature on letters to help Chinese officials obtain U.S. visas.
In closing arguments, Solomon told jurors that Sun “bragged repeatedly to her handlers in the Chinese government about what a good asset she had been.”
(Featured Image Media Credit: Courtroom Gavel [Wikimedia Commons/Public/Joe Gratz, CC0 1.0)
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