An FBI employee pleaded guilty Monday to charges that he acted as an agent for China over the course of five years, lying on paperwork about his relationship with a Chinese official and passing the official sensitive FBI information.
Kun Shan "Joey" Chun, 46, pleaded guilty in a New York courtroom before U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV.
"Americans who act as unauthorized foreign agents commit a federal offense that betrays our nation and threatens our security," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. "And when the perpetrator is an FBI employee, like Kun Shan Chun, the threat is all the more serious and the betrayal all the more duplicitous."
Chun started work as an electronics technician at the FBI's New York Field Office in 1997. He was assigned to the FBI's technical branch and granted a top secret security clearance as part of his work in 1998.
Among his duties, he accessed sensitive and sometimes classified information, authorities said.
During a trip to Europe in 2011, Chun was introduced to an unnamed Chinese government official who was aware of Chun's employment. Over the course of several meetings, Chun identified an FBI special agent to the official and speculated on the official's "potential travel patterns," prosecutors said.
When the FBI conducted a routine investigation in connection with Chun's top-secret security clearance in 2012, he repeatedly lied about his connection to the official and other Chinese nationals.
In subsequent years, he shared sensitive information with the official regarding the surveillance technology used by the FBI and the organization's structure.
FBI agents arrested Chun in March.
"No one is above the law, to include employees of the FBI," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Diego Rodriguez said. "We understand as an agency we are trusted by the public to protect our nation's most sensitive information, and we have to do everything in our power to uphold that trust."
Chun was born in Guandong, China, around 1969, The New York Times reported. He came to the United States around 1980 and become a naturalized American citizen five years later.
"Today Joey Chun accepted responsibility for some mistakes in judgment that he deeply regrets," Chun's federal public defender, Jonathan Marvinny, said in a statement released to the Times. "The truth is that Mr. Chun loves the United States and never intended to cause it any harm. He hopes to put this matter behind him and move forward with his life."
Chun is expected to appear in court again on Dec. 2 for sentencing.
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