Yaoning “Mike” Sun, a California man, was sentenced to four years in federal prison after federal prosecutors said he acted as an illegal agent for the Chinese government while working as a campaign adviser for a local politician, according to court records. Sun’s sentencing took place Monday in federal court in Los Angeles, the Associated Press reported.
Federal prosecutors said Sun pleaded guilty last year under a deal in which he acknowledged acting as a foreign agent on behalf of the People’s Republic of China from 2022 to 2024 without notifying the U.S. attorney general as required by law. Prosecutors had sought a five-year sentence.
In a statement, Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division, said: “When Americans vote for elected officials, they expect them to represent the interests of their constituents – not those of a foreign adversary like the Chinese government.” Rozhavsky’s remarks accompanied federal efforts to draw attention to disclosure obligations in cases involving foreign influence.
Sun’s lawyer, Adam Olin, declined to comment after the sentencing. Olin had asked that Sun be sentenced to time served, according to court papers, saying Sun had spent more than a year in custody and had lived a law-abiding life in the United States since moving from China in 1996.
In the court filings, Olin argued that Sun’s conduct was not independently illegal and “could have been performed consistent with the law had he only registered with the Attorney General — an obligation he did not know existed,” the AP reported.
Court records described how prosecutors tied Sun’s foreign-agent role to political activity connected to a local race in 2022. Under the plea agreement described by prosecutors, Sun received instructions from Chinese government officials to post pro-Beijing content on a website he ran with another individual, who later became a candidate for local office and won election in 2022.
The plea agreement further said Sun worked as a campaign adviser for the individual, and that the following year Sun drafted a report for Chinese officials seeking funding and assignments for more pro-Beijing activities, according to the AP. The AP said the individual was not named in court papers.
While the winning candidate was not identified in the court documents, Sun was listed as a campaign treasurer for Arcadia City Council candidate Eileen Wang on a 2022 campaign statement filing, the AP reported. Wang later was sworn in as mayor of Arcadia, a city of nearly 60,000 people northeast of Los Angeles, the AP said.
The case was filed during President Joe Biden’s administration, when federal officials have expressed rising concern about Chinese government efforts to cultivate networks of operatives that can influence U.S. local elections, the AP reported.