"Under the agreement, Sun acknowledged acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the People's Republic of China from 2022 to 2024 without notifying the U.S. attorney general as required by law. When Americans vote for elected officials, they expect them to represent the interests of their constituents not those of a foreign adversary like the Chinese government, Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence and espionage division, said in a statement."
"Sun's lawyer, Adam Olin, declined to comment. In court papers, Olin asked for Sun to be sentenced to time served after spending more than a year in custody, contending his client lived a law-abiding life in the United States since moving from China in 1996. Mr. Sun's conduct was not independently illegal and could have been performed consistent with the law had he only registered with the Attorney General an obligation he did not know existed, Olin wrote."
Yaoning Mike Sun, 65, was sentenced to four years in federal court in Los Angeles after pleading guilty to acting as a foreign agent for the People's Republic of China from 2022 to 2024 without registering with the U.S. attorney general. Sun received instructions from Chinese officials to post pro-Beijing content on a website he ran with another individual who later won local office in 2022. Sun worked as a campaign adviser and then drafted a report for Chinese officials seeking funding. Federal prosecutors sought a five-year sentence; the defense urged time served, arguing Sun did not know he had to register and had lived law-abidingly since moving from China in 1996. The case arose amid concerns about Chinese efforts to influence U.S. local elections.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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