Linda Solar, a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, faces new allegations associated to prices that she used her place to learn the Chinese language authorities, in line with a superseding indictment towards Ms. Solar and her husband unsealed Tuesday.
Ms. Solar, who served as the governor’s deputy chief of workers, is accused of bribery and violating the International Brokers Registration Act, in line with the indictment, unsealed in Federal District Court docket in Brooklyn. Whereas the indictment doesn’t embody new felony prices towards Ms. Solar, prosecutors charged her husband, Chris Hu, with three new counts of cash laundering.
Each defendants pleaded not responsible throughout a listening to Tuesday earlier than Decide Brian M. Cogan, who urged he would maintain one other listening to in two months to set a trial date.
A lawyer for Ms. Solar, Jarrod L. Schaeffer, mentioned that the brand new indictment didn’t “treatment important errors already recognized within the prior indictment.” Seth DuCharme, a lawyer for Mr. Hu, mentioned that the brand new prices weren’t a shock and that they didn’t “add a lot” to the case.
In September, federal prosecutors from the Japanese District of New York charged Mr. Hu with cash laundering and Ms. Solar with 10 felony counts, together with cash laundering, visa fraud and failing to register as a overseas agent. Prosecutors accused Ms. Solar, who additionally labored for Governor Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew M. Cuomo, of discreetly appearing as an agent for Beijing, utilizing her authorities place to learn the Chinese language Communist Celebration.
Based on prosecutors, Ms. Solar accepted lavish items — together with repeated shipments of salted geese — in trade for eradicating references to Taiwan from New York State communications, blocking Taiwanese officers from the governor’s workplace and stopping these officers from assembly with state leaders.
Ms. Solar additionally used her position to make sure that Ms. Hochul didn’t publicly talk about the plight of the Uyghurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic group in China that has confronted persecution from the Communist Celebration, prosecutors mentioned.
Justice Division officers, significantly prosecutors within the Japanese District, have cracked down lately on Beijing’s clandestine efforts to affect U.S. coverage and suppress dissidents. In August, Shujun Wang, a Queens man, was convicted of spying on Chinese language dissidents. In December, a man pleaded responsible to operating a secret police outpost in Manhattan on behalf of the Chinese language authorities.
Pam Bondi, President Trump’s newly confirmed lawyer normal, issued a memo final week calling on prosecutors to tamp down their enforcement of the International Brokers Registration Act, which has been used to focus on Chinese language influence-peddling. Prosecutors lately have used the legislation to cost individuals, together with Ms. Solar and Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, with secretly engaged on behalf of overseas governments.