CHINESE IMMIGRANT ACQUITTED OF CHARGES OF ATTEMPTING TO SELL SENSITIVE EQUIPMENT TO CHINA

A Chinese immigrant was recently acquitted of charges that he tried to export to China a high-tech camera used in missile guidance systems.  In the judge’s opinion, she stated that an undercover FBI agent entrapped Jeffrey Jhyfang Lo into carrying the camera on board a flight from Los Angeles to China.

Lo, who is a permanent resident of the US, is originally from Taiwan.  His attorneys argued that he was singled out because of his ethnicity, but the judge said that there was no indication that was the case.  The judge did find that over a seven-month period, an FBI agent secretly recorded conversations with Lo in which Lo was being pressured to transport the camera.

The judge pointed to the FBI agent’s increased pressure on Lo after Lo decided he was no longer interested in purchasing the camera.  The agent claimed he was merely trying to prevent Lo from committing any crime and was only trying to use Lo to obtain information about Chinese military weaknesses.  The judge said his testimony was not credible.

The camera involved can be purchased within the US without any restriction, but its export requires approval from the Commerce Department.  Lo was initially interested in the camera because he was competing with French and Israeli firms in an effort to provide the Chinese coast guard with the cameras.