An FBI electronics technician with a top security clearance pleaded guilty on Monday to funneling photographs of FBI documents and other sensitive information to China.
Kun Shan Chun, also known as Joey Chun, was employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation since 1997. He pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to one count of having illegally acted as an agent of a foreign government.
Prosecutors in federal court in Manhattan charged Kun Shan Chun — a naturalized US citizen who goes by “Joey Chun” — with making false statements in connection with his security clearance to cover up his connections to Chinese associates that included at least one unnamed government official.
Chun, 46, threatened American security by acting as an unauthorized foreign agent, US Attorney Preet Bharara said in statement. Because he was an FBI employee, the threat “was all the more serious and the betrayal all the more duplicitous,” the prosecutor added.
Chun, who was released after the plea, declined to speak to reporters as he left the courthouse. Defense attorney Jonathan Marvinny said in a statement that his client “deeply regrets” what he did.
Chun is scheduled to be sentenced December 2.
“The truth is that Chun loves the United States and never intended to cause it any harm,” the lawyer said.
Court papers allege that after beginning work for the FBI’s Computerized Central Monitoring Facility, Chun cultivated a relationship with Chinese associates seeking technological data and other information.
In 2013, Chun downloaded an FBI organizational chart from his FBI computer in Manhattan and later turned it over to an unnamed Chinese official, the papers say.
