A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Lu Jianwang on Wednesday after a weeklong trial that tested U.S. concerns about China’s efforts to monitor and intimidate pro-democracy dissidents inside the United States. Jurors heard that Lu, a 64-year-old naturalized citizen, set up a facility in a nondescript Chinatown office building that displayed a banner reading “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station, New York USA.” Prosecutors said the outpost was one of 30 such secret police stations the Chinese government announced in 2022 — a global network designed to reach beyond its borders to silence critics and enforce party discipline.
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. framed the verdict as a defense of sovereignty. “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,” he said after the verdict.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Antoinette Rangel argued in closing that the outpost was not Lu’s independent project but an instrument of the Chinese state. “The police station wasn’t the defendant’s idea or initiative, this was the Chinese government,” she told jurors. “This was the Chinese government’s plan and the defendant made it happen.” Testimony from Xu Jie, a Chinese dissident and YouTuber living in California, showed how the outpost targeted critics abroad, Rangel said.
Lu also faced an obstruction of justice charge over messages he deleted on WeChat, a Chinese messaging app. After the FBI raided the outpost on Oct. 3, 2022, Lu admitted to agents that he maintained contact with a handler in China and had deleted the conversation, according to prosecutors. Some messages were recovered from screenshots on his phone.
The defense countered that the U.S. government had inflated a routine paperwork violation into a spy thriller. John Carman, Lu’s attorney, told reporters the outpost was “not espionage. This is not spying. This is not intelligence gathering.” He described it as a resource for Chinese American residents to renew driver’s licenses without returning to China during pandemic-era travel restrictions, adding that people also gathered there for social activities. “Harry’s motives were pure,” Carman said, using Lu’s American nickname. “He wasn’t charged with any of that.”
A co-defendant, Chen Jinping, pleaded guilty in December 2024 to a conspiracy charge related to the outpost.
Lu, who also goes by Harry Lu, was acquitted on the conspiracy count but convicted of acting as an illegal foreign agent and obstructing justice. He faces up to 10 years in prison on the foreign-agent charge and up to 20 years on the obstruction charge. No sentencing date has been set, and he remains free on bail. Carman said the defense plans to appeal.