A federal grand jury in Brooklyn has returned a second superseding indictment that added charges against Linda Sun (孙雯) and her husband / co-defendant Chris Hu (胡骁) related to a fraudulent scheme involving procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) by the New York State (NYS) government at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the scheme, Sun steered contracts to vendors with whom she had undisclosed personal connections, and she and Hu received millions of dollars from the vendors, including some in the form of kickbacks, which Sun didn’t disclose to the NYS government. The new charges against Sun and Hu include honest services wire fraud, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, bribery, and conspiracy to defraud the US. Additionally, Hu is charged with tax evasion.
The defendants will be arraigned on June 30, 2025.
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic and while working with the team of NYS government employees responsible for obtaining PPE, Sun used her position of influence with the 
government to coordinate the NYS government’s purchase of PPE from vendors located in China. In addition to certain vendors referred by the government, Sun referred two vendors (the Cousin Company and the Associate Company) that were not recommended by the government but rather had ties to Sun and Hu, while claiming falsely that these, too, were referrals from components of the government. In reality, the Cousin Company was operated by one of Sun’s second cousins, and the Associate Company was operated by Hu and one of Hu’s business associates. With Sun’s assistance, the Cousin Company and the Associate Company each entered into multiple contracts with the NYS government worth millions of dollars apiece.
Sun, the Associate Company, and the Cousin Company didn’t disclose to the NYS government the fact that Sun and Hu had relationships with the Associate Company and the Cousin Company, or that Sun and Hu received a portion of the profits that the Associate Company and the Cousin Company made as a result of their contracts with the NYS government for PPE, including through kickback payments from the Cousin Company.
To conceal her relationship with the Cousin Company from procurement authorities at the NYS government, Sun falsified a document to suggest that the Jiangsu Department of Commerce had recommended the Cousin Company. On or about Mar 20, 2020, Sun and other NYS government officials received an email from the US representative to the Jiangsu Trade & Business Representative Office in Albany, New York suggesting 4 China-based vendors who were able to provide PPE for the NYS government. On or about Mar 21, 2020, Sun forwarded herself an altered version of the email in which she replaced the first suggested vendor — a vendor that produced ventilators — with the Cousin Company and wrote that the Cousin Company was recommended by the Jiangsu Department of Commerce.
On or about Mar 24, 2020, in an email with the subject line “Already VERIFIED by Linda Sun,” Sun wrote to NYS procurement officials that the Cousin Company “came recommended by Jiangsu Chamber of Commerce,” that the representative had helped “screen potential vendors,” and that the Cousin Company’s surgical mask was the “gold standard.” Below Sun’s message was what purported to be quoted text from the Jiangsu Chamber of Commerce’s email recommending vendors. However, the email in the quoted text was the altered email.
In connection with the Cousin Company contracts with the NYS government, a spreadsheet maintained on Sun and Hu’s personal computer indicated that the Cousin provided payments to Hu (and Sun) totaling approximately $2.3M during 2020 and 2021. These kickbacks from the Cousin Company represented taxable income. Hu didn’t report these payments as income to the US government, as required, or pay taxes on this income in Forms 1040 for 2020 and 2021 that he filed on behalf of himself and Sun.
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justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/f
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Byron Wan
@Byron_Wan
Linda Sun (孙雯) has orchestrated a “pay-to-play scheme” that generated a stream of funds and gifts as she did favors for China and she’s managed the intake as a family affair. Sun’s links to officials and their intermediaries had a direct bearing on the success of her x.com/Byron_Wan/stat…
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