A local Chinatown community leader who the feds say ran a secret Chinese “police station” out of a nondescript Manhattan office building was found guilty Wednesday of acting as an illegal foreign agent.
“Harry” Lu Jianwang was convicted after evidence revealed his dealings with China’s Ministry of Public Security — which ordered him to hang a banner inside the glass-clad building at 107 East Broadway proudly announcing that the site was a “Police Overseas Service Station” for China’s Fujian province.
Wearing a dark suit with an American flag pin affixed to its lapel, Lu betrayed no emotion when the jury’s verdict was read aloud in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday afternoon, after eight hours of deliberations.
Lu, who is currently out on $250,000 bail, faces up to 10 years in prison after being convicted of acting as illegal foreign agent of China. He was separately convicted of obstructing justice by deleting some of his messages with Chinese officials when approached by the feds, and was acquitted of a third charge of “conspiring” with others to act as a Chinese agent.
Trial evidence revealed that a Chinese security official urged Lu, 64, to help track a prominent US-based pro-democracy dissident in March 2022, just a month after Lu established the “station” inside the Manhattan headquarters of the America Changle Association, which advocates for Fujian immigrants.
“Just help me verify if this person exists,” wrote Liu Rongyan, a Fujian security officer, of Xu Jie, a longtime critic of China’s government who fled the country in 2013 and lives in California.
“A friend is looking for him for a personal matter,” Rongyan added — punctuating her text with a sheepish grin emoji — in a chat with Lu on the Chinese messaging platform WeChat.
Lu, a naturalized US citizen living in the Bronx, then messaged Keith Cheng, the leader of a separate Big Apple-based Fujian group, asking for details about the outspoken Beijing regime critic.
“When you get a chance, please see if anyone there knows him well… anyone knows him well who can help me with this, alright?” Lu texted, in an exchange recovered by the FBI.
Jurors delivered Wednesday’s verdict after getting a glimpse inside the drab six-story building at the foot of the Manhattan Bridge, where the feds claimed Lu opened the “station” in February 2022 after attending a ceremony in China where officials announced they would open 30 such outposts at sites across the globe.
Jurors saw evidence of Officer Rongyan instructing Lu on how to hang the blue “police station” banner, which was displayed above a conference table in the site’s drab office. Lu also had more than 50 contacts in his phone for officials in Chinese political and security officials, according to trial testimony.
But Brooklyn federal prosecutors did not reveal any further details on Lu or his partner, Chen Jinping, using the site to surveil enemies of the Chinese government.
Trial evidence instead largely showed that the “station” — where the FBI discovered a handful of computer monitors, the conference table and banner, and a ping-pong table covered in a red tablecloth — helped Fujian natives renew their Chinese driver’s licenses remotely.
Lu’s lawyer, John Carman, described the license setup — which prosecutors dismissed as a “front” — as evidence that Lu answered more to his neighbors than the Chinese government.
“If Harry Lu is an ‘agent,’ he is the worst agent ever,” Carman told jurors in his closing statement.
Lu was arrested at his Bronx home in 2023, along with Jinping, in what the US government had touted as part of a sweeping crackdown on China’s efforts to silence regime dissenters across the globe.
“A police station operating in New York City at the direction of the Chinese government has been exposed, its sinister purpose disrupted, and its founder held accountable for blatantly disregarding the law and our country’s sovereignty,” US Attorney for the Eastern District Joe Nocella said in a statement Wednesday.
Lu declined to comment on the verdict outside the courthouse, but Carman, his lawyer, said he was “disappointed” in the outcome.
“There was some traction on our arguments, but the cautionary tale is that if you’re a member of a community that originated in another country you have to be very, very, very careful in how you deal with people in your home country…most especially if you’re from a Chinese American community,” Carman told reporters.
Lu’s purported partner Chen pleaded guilty in December 2024 to a charge of conspiring to act on China’s behalf without telling US authorities. He’s out on bond and will be sentenced at a later date.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.