The Long Island home of Linda Sun — a former appointee to Govs. Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo — was raided by the FBI yesterday. Exactly why Sun and her husband were the target of an FBI search is still unknown, but details are beginning to emerge around Sun — the latest person in New York politics whose home or property was raided by the FBI (See: Winnie Greco, Briana Suggs and Rana Abbasova — all connected to the mayor of New York City.) Here’s what we know about Linda Sun: 1. She was fired from the Department of Labor for “misconduct” in 2023
A source in state government, who requested anonymity to freely provide details about Sun, said she was fired from her job in the Department of Labor in March of 2023 after the administration discovered “evidence of misconduct.” “Immediately upon discovering the evidence of misconduct, the administration referred the matter to law enforcement authorities,” the source said. Sun could not be reached for comment. 2. She served in mid-level roles within the Cuomo and Hochul administrations.
Sun was brought on by the Cuomo administration in 2012 to be their liaison to the AAPI community and work on intergovernmental affairs in Queens. After three years with Cuomo, Sun worked for Empire State Development for another three years as “Director of External Affairs for Global NY,” according to her Linkedin profile. The job included leading trade and investment missions to five countries each year and “negotiating mutually beneficial deliverables in-line with NYS trade and foreign direct investment goals,” according to the profile. She then took a job as deputy chief diversity officer in Cuomo’s executive chamber in 2018, before moving to the Department of Financial Services, before being hired by Hochul in September 2021 to work as her deputy chief of staff. In 2022, she left the chamber to work for the state’s Department of Labor. In New York State government, secretary to the governor — not chief of staff — is the most powerful position within the executive chamber. 3. She has a really, really nice house
The home the FBI raided on Tuesday was in a gated community in ritzy Manhasset on Long Island’s North Shore. It last sold for $3.5 million, according to property records. The home has five bedrooms and six bathrooms, and costs over $50,000 in property taxes, according to real estate websites Zillow and Compass. According to the Empire Center’s SeeThroughNY database, Sun’s salary was about $145,000 in 2021. 4. Her most recent financial disclosure provides few details
Besides her state salary, Sun reported no other sources of income in 2021, according to financial disclosure documents reviewed by Playbook. The New York Times, which broke the news of the raid on Sun’s home, reports that her husband, Chris Hu, operates a liquor store in Queens and had other ventures before then, like starting a company called Medical Supplies USA LLC during the COVID pandemic. The documents reviewed by Playbook also show that Hu was also listed as the CEO for the company “Foodie Fisherman LLC” and was shown to have partial ownership of a property in Jamaica, Queens, with his share reportedly valued somewhere between $250 to $500k. According to The Salem News, a local newspaper for communities north of Boston, Hu was with delegates from the Chinese Consulate General’s office during a trip and luncheon in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The article, published in 2016, said Hu’s company "exports more than a million pounds of lobster annually back to China." 5. She is active in the China General Chamber of Commerce
Upon Sun’s appointment as Hochul’s deputy chief of staff, the China General Chamber of Commerce — an organization that calls itself “the largest and most impactful non-profit organization representing Chinese enterprises in the U.S.” — celebrated Sun for her appointment to the governor’s administration and for being the highest-appointed Asian American in the executive chamber. “CGCC has had the honor and pleasure to work with Ms. Sun and her colleagues on many charitable projects,” the organization’s website reads.
| 
