New Yorkers behind ‘Chinese Disneyland’ charged for using investor money on Trump campaign
New Yorker: Two New York state residents were charged with illegally using funds from Chinese and Singaporean investors to donate $600,000 to then-President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign in 2017, US prosecutors say.
The scheme was part of an effort by Sherry Li and Lianbo Wang to showcase political connections as they sought funds to build a China-themed park in upstate New York, prosecutors said, adding that they raised $27 million in investment, but never completed the project.
One of the photos contained in the affidavit shows Trump and first lady Melania Trump posing for a photo with Li during a fundraiser Credit:AP
Li called the park “Chinese Disneyland,” according to a complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors said Li and Wang made contributions in their own names to a committee hosting a fundraiser for Trump on June 28, 2017, but that the funds came from 12 foreign donors the pair had charged $93,000 each to attend the event with them.
US campaign finance laws bar foreigners from contributing to political candidates or being solicited for donations, but nothing prohibits foreign nationals from attending fundraisers, said Washington lawyer Kenneth Gross, an expert in election law.
Li and Wang, both naturalised US citizens originally from China, were arrested in Long Island on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy.
In a complex financial scheme with political tentacles, prosecutors say, Li and Wang raised the $27 million then siphoned off millions of dollars for personal expenses.
To project the sway to keep their promises — which often included visas to live in the U.S. — they used investor money and foreign nationals’ cash to make big-dollar donations and be seen with Trump and other prominent politicians, prosecutors said in court documents.
“Together we can build a better, stronger and healthier community and ‘Make America Great Again!‘” read one of their business’ press releases trumpeting that Li and Wang had attended a pre-inaugural reception featuring various figures in the incoming Trump administration.
Prosecutors didn’t allege any criminal wrongdoing by the political action committees that accepted donations from Li and Wang.
Li, 50, and Wang, 45, were being held without bail after their first appearance in a Brooklyn federal court, though their lawyers can argue for bail later on. The two are facing various federal conspiracy charges.
They weren’t asked to enter a plea, but Wang volunteered, through a Mandarin interpreter, “I did not do this thing.”
The naturalised US citizens are business partners who share a Long Island home with some of Li’s relatives, including her 15-year-old son.
Li has been promoting plans for a development near New York’s Catskill Mountains for nearly a decade; Wang worked with her as general manager. Initially envisioned as a cultural theme park called China City of America it morphed into a proposal for a for-profit college campus after local officials told Li that zoning wouldn’t allow the “Chinese Disneyland” she first planned.
The Thompson Education Centre has never materialised, either. Local officials denied the necessary sewer service in 2015 and then told Li flat-out in 2017 that the project wasn’t approved, according to prosecutors’ court papers.
But she and Wang continued to tell investors the project was a go, sometimes sending them photos of a construction site. That site was actually a house she was having built somewhere else, prosecutors said.
Many backers had been lured with promises of investor visas, which ultimately were denied because of immigration officials’ doubts about the viability of the “Education Centre” project, according to court papers.
To bolster those promises, Wang and Li sought to create an image of influence with prominent U.S. politicians.
In some cases, the image was literal.
Li and Wang used a photograph taken at the June 2017 event of Li smiling with Trump and then-first lady Melania Trump to solicit investment for the theme park project, prosecutors said.
Other investors or prospects also got brochures featuring Li or Wang with Trump and other politicians, including Democratic then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, Li, Wang and unnamed co-conspirators spent at least $2.5 million of their investors’ money on jewellery, vacations, fancy dining, nannies, traffic tickets and other personal items, according to prosecutors. They said some investor money also went to the defendants’ political hobnobbing campaign, including donations and hiring a private plane to bring a Chinese national to a Trump event in October 2017.
The unusual campaign contributions by Li and Wang caught the attention of journalists in 2017 amid scrutiny of numerous donors with ties to other nations who were, at the time, trying to curry favour with the new Trump administration.
The US attorney in Brooklyn, Breon Peace, said Monday his office was “committed to protecting our democratic process from those who would expose it to unlawful foreign influence.”
Reuters, AP
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