Sam Cooper

A U.S. judge has rejected Linda Sun’s bid to access millions in frozen assets for her defense, siding with prosecutors who say she may be hiding additional financial reserves

A federal judge has ruled that Linda Sun — the senior New York government official accused of laundering proceeds from tens of millions of dollars in corrupt pandemic-era supply deals from China, while orchestrating a covert foreign influence campaign targeting two Democratic governors — cannot access millions in seized assets to fund her legal defense.

The ruling marks a major setback for Sun and her co-accused husband, Chris Hu, in a landmark national security case that federal prosecutors say blends elite political manipulation with transnational bribery, Chinese underground banking, and state-backed espionage and interference operations tied to Beijing’s United Front Work Department.

In a decision issued July 22, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan found that Sun and Hu failed to meet even the minimal evidentiary threshold for a Monsanto hearing — a legal mechanism that allows defendants to unlock frozen assets if they can demonstrate no access to alternative funds. Cogan sided with the Department of Justice, which argued that the couple may be actively concealing substantial unrestrained assets, including income and equity tied to a lattice of nine business entities owned by Hu.

At least one of those ventures, a commercial real estate holding, was partially liquidated to fund more than $400,000 in legal fees. Others, including Leivine Wine & Spirits — a high-end Flushing boutique that FBI agents concluded could not be generating the massive bulk cash revenue it reported — allegedly handled more than $77,000 in unexplained monthly cash deposits even before the store formally opened.

The broader criminal case, as The Bureau previously reported, alleges that Linda Sun covertly acted as an undeclared foreign agent for the People’s Republic of China, advancing the CCP’s foreign policy objectives while enriching herself through corrupt contracting and laundering networks. She allegedly leveraged her role in New York’s diversity and inclusion bureaucracy to influence Governor Andrew Cuomo’s public messaging, including helping script his April 2020 tweet thanking the Chinese government for a donation of ventilators during the pandemic. Under Governor Kathy Hochul, prosecutors say, Sun’s actions became more brazen: arranging unauthorized proclamations in honor of PRC diplomats, suppressing mention of the Uyghur detention camps in official remarks, and preventing Taiwan’s representatives from gaining access to state officials.

Sun and Hu allegedly funneled at least $8 million in kickbacks — derived from over $30 million in fraudulent pandemic-era PPE contracts — into a personal laundering architecture involving real estate, luxury goods, and business accounts in Queens.

Sun — also known as Wen Sun, Linda Hu, and Ling Da Sun — and Hu deny all charges and have mounted an aggressive legal campaign characterized by multiple suppression motions, challenges to search warrants, and attempts to have the case dismissed.

These efforts have accompanied a steady stream of damaging disclosures from prosecutors, including search warrant returns detailing a trove of luxury property allegedly acquired with laundered foreign capital. Among the seized or restrained assets are a $3.6 million mansion in Manhasset, a $1.9 million condo in Honolulu’s Ala Moana district, and a $1.5 million Forest Hills rental property. Government filings also list a 2024 Ferrari Roma, a Mercedes SUV, and a Range Rover as seized vehicles — in addition to more than $200,000 in liquid cash and bank deposits, none of which, the court noted, were properly accounted for in the couple’s asset declarations. A Jeep Gladiator, not initially disclosed by the defendants, was later identified by the government as an additional unrestrained asset.

As the couple’s legal maneuvers multiplied — most of them, in the court’s view, lacking the substance to alter the case — their defense costs ballooned. In their Monsanto application, Sun and Hu portrayed themselves as effectively destitute and victims of court delays.

“The collective value of everything the government seized exceeds $7 million — and that effectively cut off Mr. Hu and Ms. Sun’s access to nearly every financial resource, making it challenging to continue to care and provide for their child, let alone pay their legal fees,” their motion argued.

“Those legal fees have inevitably climbed. Moreover, as a result of the government’s repeated delays and missteps in this action, Mr. Hu and Ms. Sun have been forced to file multiple motions and endured protracted proceedings.”

The 24-page filing also added vivid new detail to the government’s sweeping seizure operations, including countering suggestions that Sun’s parents were used not only as proxies for home purchases to disguise her money laundering payoffs from China, but also to hold personal assets and cash.

The motion continued: “The only consistent source of funds that the couple previously did have—$4,800 per month in rental income from the Forest Hills Property—no longer exists. In light of Mr. Hu and Ms. Sun’s ongoing active efforts to sell the property, they are unable to rent it out. In sum, the couple is financially hamstrung.” Legal costs to date exceed $2 million, with an additional $1 million projected for November’s trial.

But Judge Cogan wasn’t moved by their claims of poverty. The Brooklyn judge found the couple’s filings omitted obvious holdings, provided vague and conclusory statements, and failed to identify how the pair had continued paying legal bills and living expenses. The court determined that Sun and Hu’s failure to declare a comprehensive list of assets was not accidental.

“This Court still does not have sufficient information to evaluate the extent of defendants’ unrestrained funds,” Cogan wrote.

The judge’s conclusion aligns with the Department of Justice’s assertion that Sun and Hu may still control millions in unreported funds.

Prosecutors revealed that beyond Hu’s nine business entities, the couple had liquidated at least $44,000 in bonds, still held over $90,000 in stock holdings, and were receiving loan proceeds and other unexplained capital transfers. The government also challenged the couple’s claim that they had been denied access to property sale proceeds.

In their Monsanto filing, the couple’s attorneys wrote: “With nearly every avenue to resources effectively extinguished by the government, Mr. Hu and Ms. Sun are now left with insufficient funds to finance their family’s monthly expenses, let alone their rising legal bills.” Their monthly costs reportedly exceed $20,000, covering property taxes, insurance, food, and childcare.

But the couple’s own legal framing may have inadvertently amplified the very financial allegations they are attempting to defeat. Central to their argument, Sun and Hu claimed their ability to retain legal counsel was crippled by disruptions to the same high-end Flushing liquor business that Hu had previously described as a bulk-cash-generating enterprise — a characterization investigators alleged was a cover for laundering illicit cash into business accounts.

Now, however, Hu claims his business depends on credit transactions.

“American Express has imposed a block on any payments made by customers using an American Express credit card at his liquor store,” the defense motion stated. “Shopify — the point-of-sale system previously utilized by his business for credit card processing — no longer allows Mr. Hu’s store to process credit cards through its system, which for a time hobbled the store’s operations.” The defense further asserted that a visible law enforcement presence near the storefront “chilled customers from entering the store and interacting with Mr. Hu, which has adversely affected sales.”

The case filings detail how Hu’s money laundering network allegedly relied on unlicensed Chinese remitters in Flushing.

Such Chinese cash brokers are part of a transnational system used to ferry capital from the PRC through underground banking corridors into American storefronts and property and banks, broader ongoing U.S. government investigations into Chinese crime networks have found.

Sun’s unsuccessful Monsanto motion also highlighted that one of their expensive failed legal efforts aimed to suppress a public comment by former Trump official Kash Patel, who described her as a Chinese agent embedded in the U.S. government and profiting from corrupt PPE contracts while frontline Americans went without protection.

“While Americans were locked down and desperate for PPE, Linda Sun and Chris Hu cashed in — allegedly lining their pockets while serving CCP interests,” Patel posted to X. “This is corruption that endangered lives.”

Although prosecutors did not cite Patel’s remarks, the defense argued the statement had unfairly prejudiced the case.

As previously reported by The Bureau, in a separate ruling denying Sun’s motions to dismiss the case and suppress evidence, Judge Cogan found ample support for the government’s allegation that Sun knowingly acted as an undeclared agent of the People’s Republic of China — in violation of U.S. laws requiring foreign agents to register.

In one WeChat exchange cited by the FBI, Sun reportedly told her parents that a Chinese contact known as “Chairman Xia” had upgraded her airline tickets. Prosecutors say she was hosted in a Beijing hotel suite previously occupied by former First Lady Michelle Obama. In the same thread, Sun acknowledged she expected to be asked for increasing “favors” by her handlers in return for their generosity — a detail prosecutors highlight as evidence of her witting entanglement in a covert foreign influence campaign.

The court cited Sun’s alleged role in arranging fraudulent invitation letters to support illegal visa entries for officials from China’s Henan province. The visit, pitched as part of a proposed $1 billion university partnership in New York, appeared to be a United Front cover operation aimed at expanding Beijing’s political and economic influence on U.S. soil.

According to government filings, Sun used her access not only to open doors for Chinese officials, but to close them to Beijing’s geopolitical rivals — especially Taiwan.

The indictment further alleges that even after receiving a warning from the FBI, Sun continued to act on behalf of PRC officials, including repeated efforts to shape New York State policy toward Taiwan and providing Chinese consular officials with advance access to internal government communications.

In early 2021, prosecutors say, Sun gave the Chinese consulate a draft of Governor Hochul’s public remarks, enabling Beijing to sanitize the language — including stripping any reference to politically sensitive topics such as the detention of Uyghurs in Xinjiang. “Based on feedback from a PRC government official, [Hochul] did not publicly address the detention of Uyghurs in PRC state-run camps in Xinjiang,” Judge Cogan noted, citing FBI evidence.

“These actions, as alleged, demonstrate Sun using her authority and power to induce action or change the decisions or acts of another,” Cogan wrote, concluding that they were “sufficient to constitute the ‘influence’ element of a FARA offense, even as Sun defines it.”

Finally, Judge Cogan emphasized that the indictment clearly supports the conclusion that Sun understood her alleged United Front handlers — CC-1 and CC-2 — were themselves agents of the Chinese government and Communist Party. As the indictment states: “Sun understood that CC-1 and CC-2 were themselves acting as agents of the PRC government and the CCP when they made requests of Sun.”