Chinese Spy Can’t Shake Criminal Conviction, Eight-Year Sentence

A foreign national found guilty of acting as an unregistered agent of the People’s Republic of China lost an appeal to undo his convictions when the Seventh Circuit said he misread the statute.

Ji Chaoqun claimed, among other things, that the jury should have been required to unanimously agree on the specific actions he took on US soil on behalf of China to find him guilty of failing to register as a foreign agent.

But a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 951 “in no way turns on the nature of the act,” Judge Amy J. St. Eve said. “Instead, it ...