FILE – Zhu Yong, right, tries to shield himself from photographers as he leaves federal court, May 31, 2023, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)
NEW YORK – A man convicted in the first trial highlighting U.S. claims that China harasses its critics overseas was sentenced Wednesday to two years in prison for his role in a creepy campaign to get a former official to return to his homeland.
Zhu Yong, a Chinese retiree who faces likely deportation from the U.S. after his prison term, expressed regret while suggesting he didn’t initially think through the implications of what he was doing.
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“I also plead to the nation, the victims and every American citizen for their forgiveness,” he told a court through a Mandarin-language interpreter. He begged a judge for “a chance to renew myself” and to see his grandchild grow up in the U.S.
Zhu, 68, was one of three men found guilty of various charges in a 2023 trial that portrayed cross-border surveillance and stalking in suburban New Jersey.
The target, a former Chinese city official named Xu Jin, was subjected to subtle and overt pressure to go back to China, where he and his wife have been accused of bribery, according to testimony. They deny the allegation and say he was targeted because of internal politics within China’s Communist government.
Their adult daughter’s Facebook friends got disparaging messages about him. Xu’s octogenarian father was abruptly flown from China to the U.S. to implore him to come back. Finally, an ominous note was taped on the man’s own New Jersey door.
“If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison,” the message read in translation,
Man gets 2 years in US prison for aiding pushy effort to get ex-official to return to China
