A federal judge ruled on Friday that a former NYPD officer accused of spying for the Chinese regime will be released on bail immediately, according to the New York Post.
The officer in question, Baimadajie Angwang, was recently diagnosed with COVID-19 while awaiting trial in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, according to the Post.
Angwang is accused of delivering information on Tibetan immigrants to the Chinese consulate over a six-year period while serving as an NYPD officer. He was charged with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign country, wire fraud, false statements, and obstruction of an official proceeding last September.
Angwang’s attorney John Carman put forward a bail motion, arguing that his client was experiencing “diarrhea, vomiting, sweats, chills, body aches, and cough,” according to the Post. He also cited 100 new COVID-19 cases and recent deaths of two of Angwang’s fellow inmates as evidence of the danger posed to his client.
U.S. District Judge Eric Komitee ruled in favor of the defense’s $2 million bail motion, agreeing that the jail’s sudden spike in COVID-19 cases posed a threat to Angwang’s life, the Post reported.
“You have [now] what looks like a significant spike in the rate and severity of COVID cases,” Judge Komitee said.
