December 22, 2025 - David M. Eskew
This afternoon, a federal jury in the Eastern District of New York deadlocked on all counts against AEL’s client Linda Sun and her husband and co-defendant Chris Hu. The Honorable Brian M. Cogan declared a mistrial on all counts against both defendants.
Lead trial counsel, AEL partners Ken Abell and Jarrod Schaeffer, issued the following statement immediately following the mistrial:
“Throughout this trial, Linda Sun has steadfastly maintained her innocence. The inability of dedicated jurors to reach a unanimous verdict despite nearly a week of deliberation underscores the deeply flawed and questionable nature of the novel charges in this case. Indeed, the government tried to use multiple federal criminal statutes to prosecute a dedicated public servant for doing her job for New Yorkers. She did not commit any crimes and today, she has obtained a modicum of vindication. Despite the enormous toll this has taken on her and her family, she returns home today without the weight of a criminal trial or any convictions. We sincerely hope that the government considers the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on any count against any defendant before taking this flawed case to trial again.”
The mistrial concludes a complicated, hotly contested month-long trial. AEL’s client Linda Sun was the former Deputy Chief Diversity Officer to former Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Deputy Chief of Staff to current-Governor Kathy Hochul. On August 26, 2024, she was charged in a 10-count indictment with, among other things, conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), failure to register under FARA, visa fraud and alien smuggling, and money laundering conspiracy. Over the next several months, the government superseded three times adding additional charges and conflicting legal theories, including honest services wire fraud and federal program bribery. Mr. Hu, Linda’s husband, was also charged on multiple counts. In the leadup to trial, there was substantial litigation, including motions to dismiss, motions to suppress over perceived discovery lapses by the government, and the disclosure of classified exculpatory materials.
On November 12, 2025, trial against Linda Sun and Chris Hu commenced. In his opening statement, Mr. Schaeffer rejected the government’s theories of criminal liability against Ms. Sun. “For more than a decade,” said Schaeffer, “[Linda Sun] worked for [New York State] and didn’t commit crimes by doing her job. As you will learn during this trial, Linda has committed the better part of her professional life to serving the public[.] We are here because despite her record of impressive public service, the government has charged Linda with crimes that assault everything she’s built her life around.”
Mr. Schaeffer attacked the government’s varying and sometimes-conflicting claims against Ms. Sun. Regarding the FARA counts – in which the government accused Ms. Sun of failing to register as a Chinese foreign agent – Mr. Schaeffer dismissed the charges as “nonsense”:
“Linda has lived in this country since she was a child, when her family came here to pursue the American dream. She grew up here. She went to school here. She’s raising her family here. She is an American and she is a New Yorker . . . . You won’t see evidence that Linda followed orders from China or disregarded New York’s interests because foreign officials told her to. Instead, the evidence is going to show Linda working on behalf of New Yorkers . . . . It was her job to communicate with the consulate, to cultivate relationships that benefit New Yorkers, and to help her superiors, the highest political office in the state, to avoid alienating a significant voting bloc in New York[.]”
Mr. Schaeffer also pointed out the absurdity of the government’s evidence stating, “the government’s claim that Linda became a foreign agent for some salted ducks might be funny if the consequences for her family weren’t so serious.” “Even stranger” was the government’s claims that Linda illegally brought aliens into the United States by helping a recognized Chinese delegation visit with the then-Lieutenant Governor, noting that some in the delegation already had visas and that they all went home after their visit to New York. On the fraud and money laundering counts, Mr. Schaeffer urged the jury to listen closely to the evidence and use their common sense. “You’ll see no evidence proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Linda did anything wrong in connection with PPE contracts.”
Over the course of the trial, the government put on forty-one witnesses but none offered direct evidence of any wrongdoing and the text messages and other evidence that the government said showed disloyalty and fraud failed to tie together its various theories in any coherent way. Ken Abell delivered the summation for Linda Sun:
“Foreign influence, money, China, . . . . political official for sale, the government made that sound so dramatic when this case started[.] The story, however . . . has huge holes in it. It has a lot of unanswered questions. And at the end of the day, . . . it just does not hold together the way the government says it does. And respectfully, I think the government knows that. That’s why [the government] admitted to you, there’s no witness who can tie all that together . . . . The government failed to deliver on the promises that it made to all of you at the beginning of this trial.”
Mr. Abell pointed out that the government called fourteen witnesses – over a third of their presentation – that had nothing to do with the investigation and had no direct knowledge of the evidence. Mr. Abell called them “readers” because all they did was read emails and text messages without context, comprehension, or explanation. “Now, what we’re left with . . . at the end of this long trial is a hodgepodge of accusations and pieces of evidence that simply don’t prove the charges against [Linda]. And they definitely don’t prove them beyond a reasonable doubt.”
For example, on the FARA charges, Mr. Abell pointed out that the government’s own witnesses admitted that Ms. Sun’s conduct with respect to China and Taiwan “were consistent with what had been done in the past;” in other words, “Linda did not stonewall representatives of the Taiwanese government” to benefit China. “That’s not fair, that’s not accurate, it’s not a reasonable assumption,” said Mr. Abell. Regarding other aspects of the government’s so-called evidence that Ms. Sun acted as a “foreign agent,” Mr. Abell noted, “I want to repeat it because it’s so striking. Every single New York government witness agreed that [the conduct] was part of Linda’s job.”
On the fraud and money laundering charges, Mr. Abell pointed out that the government’s case against Ms. Sun was based on innuendo rather than evidence. “The government went to great length during this trial to show you as much money and purchases as it possibly could. The theory seems to be that money and China and state government is an enticing mix. And the government’s hoping that you’re distracted by the implications of that. Because that’s all it is, implications. There was no evidence linking that money to specific crimes.” In the end:
“The government got key parts of this case wrong, just simply wrong. And they threw the kitchen sink at these folks, at Linda and Chris[.] Foreign agent charges, wire fraud, immigration counts, money laundering, you name it. A hodgepodge of evidence with holes so big you could drive a truck through some of them. But what does the evidence actually show in the end? Nothing close to what the government claimed . . . . [Linda] is not a foreign agent[.] She did not commit immigration offenses. She did not take bribes or defraud the State of New York. And she did not launder criminal proceeds that never existed. That’s the true story here.”
After eighteen days of trial, forty-nine witnesses (eight called by the defense), 758 exhibits, and six days of deliberation, the jury could not reach consensus on any of the government’s theories or evidence against any defendant.
Ms. Sun was represented at trial by Ken Abell, Jarrod Schaeffer, Nafeesah Attah and Charlotte Woods. Mr. Hu was represented at trial by Nicole Boeckmann and David Shargel of Bracewell.