A FORMER\u00a0FBI employee in New York was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after admitting that he illegally acted at the direction of a Chinese official to gather sensitive information.
Kun Shan Chun, also known as Joey Chun, was also ordered by U. S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan to pay $10,000 after pleading guilty in August to having illegally acted as an agent of a foreign government.
\u201cI\u2019m so sorry,\u201d a tearful Chun said in court. \u201cI take full responsibility.\u201d
Chun, a U. S. citizen who was born in China, was arrested in March in connection with what prosecutors called a duplicitous betrayal of the FBI , which had employed him in its New York field office since 1997.
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Prosecutors said that beginning in 2005, Chinese individuals claiming to be affiliated with a China-based printer products manufacturer called Zhuhai Kolion Technology Company Ltd solicited an investment from one of Chun\u2019s parents.
Chun, 47, first met purported Kolion associates during a 2005 trip, and met them abroad at several other times, eventually meeting a Chinese official who asked him about the FBI and surveillance practices and targets, prosecutors said.
In turn, Chun provided the official an FBI organizational chart and photographs related to surveillance technologies, prosecutors said.
In exchange, Chun\u2019s associates paid for him to go on international trips, and they sometimes also paid for prostitutes for him while he was abroad, prosecutors said.
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By 2015, the FBI had sent an undercover agent to meet with Chun, who told the agent that \u201cif you deal with the government, you know what they want.\u201d
\u201cThey want what the American government is doing,\u201d he said, according to prosecutors.
During a later meeting, in which they discussed selling classified information the agent provided, Chun said his Chinese associates had asked him about surveillance targets and if he had information on \u201cwho they watching,\u201d prosecutors said.
The sale never happened, after Chun said he believed he was under investigation and one of his associates told the him not to trust the agent, who may be part of a \u201cset up.\u201d
In court on Friday, Chun\u2019s lawyer, Jonathan Marvinny, argued his client deserved no prison time, saying he had acted only to protect his parents\u2019 investment and was \u201cnot out to harm the United States.\u201d
Marrero was unconvinced.
\u201cMr. Chun knew what he was doing, and he knew it was very wrong,\u201d he said. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n