Court sentences Chinese national over scheme targeting Falun Gong practitioners

Nov. 20 (UPI) -- A Chinese national has been sentenced to 20 months in prison after admitting to trying to damage an opposition religious movement present in the United States under the direction of the Asian nation.

John Chen, 71, a Chinese national and a Los Angeles resident, was sentenced Tuesday, the Justice Department said in a statement. Along with being sentenced to 20-month prison term, Cjen was also handed three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $50,000.

The sentence comes after Chen and his co-defendant, Lin Feng, 44, a Chinese national and resident of Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in July to conspiring at China's direction to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center, which is run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners.

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that has been banned in China since 1999. Its practitioners are considered one of the so-called Five Poisons of the Communist Party along with the supporters of Uyghurs and Tibetans as well as those in favor of Chinese democracy and Taiwan independence.

The scheme carried out by the two men at China's direction ran from January to May 2023.

According to court documents, Chen first filed a complaint with the IRS' Whistleblower Program that was "facially deficient" and contained "rhetoric similar to the propaganda that the PRC Government uses to justify its subjugation and harassment of Falun Gong members."

The People's Republic of China is China's official name.

After the complaint was filed, Chen and Feng paid cash bribes totaling $5,000 to an undercover agent posing as an IRS employee to advance their complaint.

In excerpts of a recorded phone call reproduced in the Justice Department statement, Chen is quoted as stating the bribes were to facilitate China's aim of "toppl[ing]" the Falun Gong.

In a call intercepted by a authorized wiretap, Chen and Feng discussed orders they received from a Chinese government official, including deleting the instructions to evade detection as well as plans to inform the official if their bribery scheme failed.

Prosecutors said Chen and Feng went to Newburgh, N.Y., on May 14, 2023, where they met the undercover agent, whom they paid an initial $1,000 cash bribe. They also informed the agent that they would pay another $50,000 for opening an audit into the Shen Yun Performing Arts Center, along with 60% of any whistleblower award from the IRS.

On May 18, 2023, Feng gave the agent a second, $4,000 cash bribe at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Feng was sentenced to a time-served sentence of 16 months on Sept. 26.