A Pomona woman accused of conspiring to procure and smuggle sensitive U.S. space communications technology to her native China was denied bail Wednesday by a U.S. District judge in Santa Ana, who ruled that she was a “serious flight risk.”
Si Chen, also known as Cathy Chen, had been conditionally granted $400,000 bail on May 25, but Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh stayed his ruling so federal prosecutors could appeal.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney sided with prosecutors Wednesday and ordered Chen, who has a 4-year-old daughter, detained until trial.
The judge noted in his written ruling that the allegations against Chen are “extremely serious. It is well known that China is aggressively developing disruptive and destructive counterspace capabilities that pose a serious threat to the national security of the United States.”
Chen is charged with being an “instrumental agent for China in this quest: she is accused of intentionally circumventing this country’s laws by covertly exporting sophisticated technology used to make jammers designed to deny access to military satellites,” Carney wrote.
Chen, 32, came to the U.S. in 2007 after graduating college to pursue a master’s degree in accounting and interned for a year at a company that provided engineering services to aerospace companies, including defense contractors, according to Carney.
“A Chinese national, defendant has spent the vast majority of her life overseas and has minimal ties to the United States,” Carney wrote. “She has no family here other than her husband, who is also a Chinese national. There is no evidence that her husband has any meaningful ties to the United States.
Defendant has even previously arranged for her young child to spend significant time in China with her parents and away from her. Both defendant’s husband and her father also have extensive ties to the Chinese military, the purported recipient and beneficiary of the export-restricted components that she allegedly smuggled,” the judge wrote.
In the argument she made last month against pretrial release, Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith Heinz presented more than a dozen exhibits she said proved Chen conspired with associates overseas to illegally ship “military parts” to China, used a false Chinese passport, and lied to U.S. immigration officials in visa applications.
The prosecutor further argued that Chen has family ties to the Chinese government, while her husband was educated at a Chinese military academy and has close connections to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the country’s armed forces.
“There is great incentive to flee,” Heinz told the court, pointing out that if convicted, the Chinese national would face the possibility of more than six years behind bars followed by deportation.
“There is just no way we can keep her from getting a Chinese passport,” the prosecutor said then, calling Chen a “chameleon. She changes her name, changes her identification — and she lies.”
Chen’s attorney, Robert Cornforth, had argued that if granted bond, his client could be trusted to appear for all pretrial hearings. He said Chen knew for more than a year that she was under investigation and still did not flee the country.
Chen has pleaded not guilty to charges contained in a 14-count indictment returned in April, accusing her of violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, conspiracy, money laundering, making false statements on an immigration application, and using a forged passport.
The indictment alleges that from March 2013 to December 2015, Chen purchased and smuggled sensitive items to China without obtaining licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce as required by the Economic Powers Act. Jammers can be used to cut off an adversary’s cellular communications and to mislead enemy forces.
–City News Service