WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.—Two men have pleaded guilty to acting as illegal Chinese agents in helping Beijing to further its suppression of the faith group Falun Gong in the United States.
Under the direction of the Chinese official, Mr. Chen filed a defective whistleblower complaint against the nonprofit with the IRS that contained rhetoric parroting vilifying propaganda that the Chinese regime uses to justify the persecution of Falun Gong.
The two men then paid $5,000 in cash bribes to an undercover officer disguised as an IRS agent, promising $50,000 for opening an audit on the nonprofit entity and 60 percent of any potential whistleblower award if the case came through.
In a recorded call, Mr. Chen explicitly said that the bribe payments, which came from Chinese authorities, aimed to “topple” Falun Gong. The Chinese “leadership” is “very generous,” he said during the call.
Beijing designated Falun Gong as “one of the top five threats to its rule,” a statement from the Justice Department states.
“In China, Falun Gong adherents face a range of repressive and punitive measures from the Chinese government, including imprisonment,” the statement said.
Mr. Chen and Mr. Lin each pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an unregistered foreign government agent and one count of bribing a public official.
The two will be sentenced on the last two days of October, respectively.
They each face a maximum of 25 years in prison, although the judge will consider “the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors” when issuing the penalty, according to the statement.
The plea agreements show that the applicable sentencing range for Mr. Chen is between 24 to 30 months of imprisonment and a fine of $10,000 to $95,000. For Mr. Lin, the calculations from the sentencing guideline come to around 12 to 18 months of prison term with a fine ranging from $5,500 to $55,000.
Both agree to forfeit $50,000—the value of proceeds from the offense—on top of any possible fines.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams described the case as part of “malicious transnational repression attempts by foreign influences on American soil.”
“John Chen and Lin Feng brazenly attempted to bribe an undercover agent they believed to be an IRS agent here in the United States on behalf of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] Government in order to harass and intimidate the Falun Gong, a target of PRC repression,” he said in a statement.
“Efforts such as this to repress free speech by targeting critics of the PRC in the United States will not be tolerated.”
Mr. Lin, a green card holder, wore a beige-colored prison uniform with his hands cuffed when appearing at the July 25 hearing. He recognized that the guilty plea could bear immigration consequences and lead to him being removed from the United States and denied future entry or citizenship.
Mr. Lin described Mr. Chen as his “boss,” saying that they had discussed the plan together and that he had helped facilitate a May meeting between Mr. Chen and the purported IRS official, although he didn’t participate in the conversation.
“While we worked together, I found that Chen works for important figures in the Chinese government and businesses,” Mr. Lin said, adding that he was sometimes looped in the conversations between Mr. Chen and China-based individuals who expressed a desire to “harm Falun Gong.”
According to the indictment, the man, U.S. citizen Li Ping, was a cooperative agent for the Ministry of State Security, China’s powerful secret intelligence agency, since at least 2012.
Mr. Li has sent personal details of a St. Petersburg-based Falun Gong practitioner and two Israeli authors of a book concerning Falun Gong under the instruction of a Chinese intelligence officer in Wuhan, China, the indictment said.
