Former FBI Agent Admits Working for China

BENJAMIN WEISER and MEGAN JULA

August 1, 2016

The federal authorities on Monday secured a guilty plea from a longtime employee of theFederal Bureau of Investigation accused of lying about his relationship with a Chinese technology company and various Chinese associates, including some people with ties to the Chinese government.

The government charged that the F.B.I. employee, Kun Shan Chun, had “expressed a willingness to facilitate the passage of sensitive United States government information” to his Chinese associates, including some with connections to the Chinese government.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said that Mr. Chun had also made a series of false statements to the bureau regarding his contact with these Chinese nationals and a firm based in China, Zhuhai Kolion Technology Company, “as part of a longstanding and concerted effort to conceal these relationships.”

Mr. Chun, who is known as Joey and who works in the F.B.I.’s New York office, pleaded guilty on Monday before a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan to one count of acting in the United States as an agent of China. The count carries a maximum term of 10 years.

Mr. Chun, 46, had been charged with four counts, according to the complaint, including making false statements in a written questionnaire submitted to the F.B.I. in connection with his security clearance.

Kun Shan Chun, a longtime employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on Monday. Credit Reuters

Mr. Chun’s federal public defender, Jonathan Marvinny, said in a statement after the hearing: “Today Joey Chun accepted responsibility for some mistakes in judgment that he deeply regrets. The truth is that Mr. Chun loves the United States and never intended to cause it any harm. He hopes to put this matter behind him and move forward with his life.”

According to the complaint, Mr. Chun was born in Guangdong, China, around 1969, entered the United States around 1980 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1985.

Mr. Chun had worked at the F.B.I.’s New York field office as an electronics technician assigned to the bureau’s technical branch, the complaint said. He has had a “top secret” security clearance since 1998.

The F.B.I. and the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan each had no immediate comment on the case.

The complaint was signed by F.B.I. Special Agent Jason Levitt, who wrote that the focus of his counterintelligence work had been to investigate the foreign intelligence activities of the People’s Republic of China.

The complaint was approved by two federal prosecutors in Manhattan and two trial lawyers from the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section in Washington.