Defense expects to present its side early next week.
Linda Sun arrives at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in New York City on Nov. 24, 2025. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
NEW YORK CITY—Prosecutors have wrapped up their case against Linda Sun, former senior aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, in the high-profile foreign agent trial after calling several dozen witnesses to the stand.
Sun, 42, had worked for more than 15 years in the New York state government, serving under both former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Hochul.
During the trial, which lasted longer than three weeks, prosecutors presented files alleging Sun’s close ties with the Chinese Consulate in New York City and kickbacks for her husband’s business, including text messages in which Sun bragged about her influence over state officials and expressed desire to do more for her native country.
The defense will present its side on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9. Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, have yet to decide if they will take the stand to testify.
‘Much More Obedient’
In early 2021, Sun convinced Hochul, then lieutenant governor, to film a Chinese Lunar New Year greeting for the Chinese Consulate.
“She is much more obedient than the governor,” Sun wrote to Chinese consular official Li Lihua, according to text messages prosecutors presented.
Sun had asked Li for talking points and promised to “make sure to include it” in her remarks, according to screenshots of the messages.
Li, after receiving a link to the recorded greeting video from Sun in January 2021, wrote, “Wow, that’s perfect.”
The video, released by the Chinese Consulate in February 2021, showed Hochul saying “Happy Chinese New Year” in Chinese. Hochul in the video also gave recognition to then-Chinese Consul General in New York Huang Ping by name, saying that it was a “privilege” to work with him and that she had cherished the chance to participate in Lunar New Year parades throughout the state every year.
Text messages also showed Sun to have close communications with Huang.
In April 2020, she thanked Huang for 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.
Huang said, “Must praise you, you are outstanding.”
Sun then said she hoped to be “as good as [Huang] in the future.”
Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Payments From China
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, Sun was in charge of locating vendors of needed medical gear such as ventilators, masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer. Prosecutors alleged that Sun took advantage of the role and took large sums of kickbacks from China.
New York state entered into contracts totaling $12 million with a company called High Hope, based in Jiangsu, China, which is associated with Hu.
In a spreadsheet, Hu had a formula to calculate the profit as the total payout from New York state for the surgical masks and gloves, which also accounts for costs and shipping fees, according to documents presented at court. The profit he calculated came out to more than $6 million, the spreadsheet shows. The profit, according to the spreadsheet, was equally divided between him and his partner Henry Hua, a Chinese businessman based in Vancouver, Canada, and Nanjing, China, with a close business relationship with High Hope.
Through a handful of different channels, Hua and his company Constar allegedly laundered money back to Hu through third parties, according to prosecutors. Hu kept account of all these payments on his Excel sheet and deducted them from a cell titled “Henry owes me,” prosecutors said.
United Front ‘Address Book’
Sun was featured in a who’s who booklet by the All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese organization, a group that operates under the overseas influence arm of the communist regime known as the United Front, according to prosecutors.
At the trial, prosecutors presented several event badges from conferences Sun attended in China, as well as a small blue “Address Book.” The four-by-six-inch booklet contains attendees’ headshots along with their position or title abroad, street address, and personal email address.
Sun was a speaker at a conference the organization hosted in 2018, with a Chinese agent facilitating her travel and reserving a presidential suite previously used by First Lady Michelle Obama during her stay in Beijing, according to the indictment. At about the same time, prosecutors said, the same individual was assisting Hu’s business affairs in China.