A Chinese man living in Los Angeles was sentenced to almost two years in federal prison for his role in trying to bribe an IRS official at the behest of the Chinese government.
Earlier this year, John Chen, 71, admitted that he served as an unregistered agent of the Chinese government and tried to bribe who he thought was an IRS agent to revoke the tax-exempt status of Falun Gong, a U.S.-based new religious movement. The scheme was first reported by Seamus Hughes’ Court Watch.
Falun Gong, perhaps best known for the Shen Yun dance performances and news outlet The Epoch Times, opposes the Chinese Communist Party’s control of the country.
Alongside co-conspirator Lin Feng, 44, Chen “worked inside the United States at the direction of the [People’s Republic of China] government … to further the PRC government’s campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.
Using multiple payments of several thousand dollars each and promising at least $50,000 if an audit were opened, Chen and Feng worked with government officials from the People’s Republic of China to “carry out the PRC government’s aim of ‘toppl[ing] . . . the Falun Gong,’” prosecutors wrote.
As a result, Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison and three years of supervised release, and he’ll forfeit $50,000 as well.
Feng was sentenced in September to a time-served sentence of 16 months in prison.
Each faced a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.