The former gubernatorial aide from Long Island accused of acting as an unregistered agent of China is facing new charges connected to allegations that she steered state contracts to certain PPE vendors during the COVID-19 pandemic, receiving millions of dollars in return, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Linda Sun, 41, a former aide to Gov. Kathy Hochul and Andrew M. Cuomo, and her husband, Chris Hu, 40, were indicted on charges of honest services wire fraud, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, bribery, and conspiracy to defraud the United States, in connection with the alleged PPE scheme, according to a newly released superseding indictment. Hu is also charged with tax evasion.

The couple are scheduled to be arraigned on the new charges contained in the superseding indictment on Monday.

"As alleged, Linda Sun not only acted as unregistered agent of the government of the People’s Republic of China, but also enriched herself to the tune of millions of dollars when New York State was at its most vulnerable at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic," United States Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said in a statement. "When masks, gloves, and other protective supplies were hard to find, Sun abused her position of trust to steer contracts to her associates so that she and her husband could share in the profits. We demand better from our public servants, and this Office will continue to hold accountable public officials who enrich themselves at the expense of the New York taxpayers."

Defense attorneys for both defendants balked at the new charges. 

Sun’s attorney, Jarrod L. Schaeffer, a partner at Abell Eskew Landau LLP in Manhattan, said in a statement to Newsday Thursday: “Scrambling to develop new theories and shoving new charges into an indictment as trial looms is both unfortunate and telling, but it is also unsurprising given how this case has proceeded and the government’s recent efforts to further delay trial in this case.

"The newest allegations continue the government’s trend of making and publicizing feverish accusations unmoored from the facts and evidence that we expect will actually come out at trial. Ms. Sun vehemently denies these latest allegations and intends to vigorously contest them in court.”

Hu's attorney, Seth DuCharme, a partner at Manhattan-based Bracewell LLP, said in response to an inquiry from Newsday: "It’s been apparent over the last few months that the government has been scrambling to try to come up with a new charging theory. The superseding indictment comes as no surprise. We remain confident in Chris. I don't expect the trial date to change."

Prosecutors said Sun, as a member of the state government employees tasked with purchasing PPE, steered the purchase of PPE from two vendors — the Cousin Company and the Associate Company — that had ties to Sun and Hu, while claiming falsely that the companies were recommended by the Chinese government.

But one of Sun’s second cousins operated the Cousin Company, and Hu and one of Hu’s business associates operated the Associate Company, prosecutors said 

The couple were arrested by the FBI in September after prosecutors alleged they laundered millions of dollars in proceeds from Chinese government officials in exchange for actions taken by Sun at the behest of those officials. The couple allegedly used the money to buy their $4 million Manhasset mansion and a 2024 Ferrari, prosecutors have said.

They have pleaded not guilty to the charges. Sun and Hu are scheduled to go on trial in November. 

Newsday reported days after their 2024 arrest that Sun played a critical role in getting much-needed supplies from China in the early days of the pandemic. Sun was among those inside Cuomo’s executive chamber working on a deal with China for supplies, which resulted in the donation of masks, surgical gowns and ventilators to New York, Newsday reported then.

The state was later billed more than $700,000 by a company owned by a friend of Sun's husband that shipped the ventilators to the U.S., Newsday reported in 2024, citing federal records.

Prosecutors have said Sun, who joined the Cuomo administration in 2012, took several actions at the request of Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party officials, including blocking representatives of the Taiwanese government from having access to Cuomo and later Hochul, in order to not anger the Chinese government, which does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country.

Sun, who worked as Hochul’s deputy chief of staff before taking a post at the Department of Labor, also obtained official New York State proclamations for Chinese government representatives without proper authorization, attempted to facilitate a trip to China by a high-level New York State politician and arranged meetings for visiting delegations from the Chinese government with New York State government officials, federal prosecutors have said.

Sun was fired from the labor department in March 2023, but she allegedly continued to attend meetings and represent herself as a state employee, prosecutors have said.

The Cousin Company and the Associate Company each entered into multiple contracts with the NYS government worth millions of dollars

apiece, prosecutors said. 

None of the parties, including Sun, disclosed their pre-existing relationships to state government, or that Sun and Hu allegedly received a portion of the profits, prosecutors said.

Sun allegedly falsified a document to suggest that Chinese officials had recommended the Cousin Company, in what prosecutors said was an effort to conceal her relationship with the company.

“On or about March 20, 2020, Sun and other NYS government officials received an email from the U.S. representative to the Jiangsu Trade & Business Representative Office in Albany, New York suggesting four PRC-based vendors who were able to provide PPE for the NYS government,” prosecutors wrote in the superseding indictment. “On

or about March 21, 2020, Sun forwarded herself an altered version of the email in which she replaced the first suggested vendor—a vendor that produced ventilators—with the Cousin Company and wrote that the Cousin Company was recommended by the Jiangsu Department of

Commerce.”

Three days later, Sun followed up with an email to a state procurement official, saying in an email with the subject line “Already VERIFIED by Linda Sun,” that the Cousin Company “came recommended by Jiangsu Chamber of Commerce,” and its surgical masks were the “gold standard.”

Following those emails, prosecutors said, a state procurement official responded by approving “expedite[d] purchasing.”

Hu and Sun received $2.3 million in kickbacks as a result of the Cousin Company contracts with the state, prosecutors said, adding that Hu did not report the payments on his taxes.

Prosecutors said Sun also allegedly arranged for the Associate Company to gain state contracts. On March 14, 2020, she wrote an email to officials on the state’s PPE task force, mentioning the company as a potential vendor and she also emailed the company to obtain a price quote, prosecutors said.

An internal state document that tracked state PPE contracts, which was found on a computer owned by the defendants, said the company was “referred by Chinese chamber of commerce,” prosecutors said. There was no referral for the Associate Company, prosecutors said.

In another spreadsheet that prosecutors said was found in one of Hu’s electronic accounts, Hu expected to gain $8,029,741 from the contracts the state had with the two companies. Hu, according to prosecutors, wrote the word “me” in the column for the expected profits.