Prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York on Friday dropped their charges against Baimadajie Angwang, an NYPD officer and former U.S. Marine accused of reporting to Chinese officials on the activities of fellow ethnic Tibetans living in the United States.
Angwang was working as a community affairs officer in Queens when he was arrested in September 2020 and charged with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government. He was 33 years old at the time.
Angwang was born in Chinese-occupied Tibet, where he said he was arrested and beaten by Chinese authorities as a teenager for criticizing the occupation. He obtained political asylum in the United States, joined the Marines in 2009, and became an American citizen in 2010. His military service, which concluded with an honorable discharge in 2014, included seven months in Afghanistan. He obtained a secret-level security clearance from the Department of Defense during his time with the Marines, where he achieved the rank of sergeant and was decorated several times.
Angwang joined the New York police department two years after his discharge from the Marines. His assignment as a community affairs officer was intended to build bridges with the Tibetan community in the precinct. He often used a more traditional Tibetan name, Ngawang Dhargyal, when interacting with the community.
“He came to events in his New York Police Department officer’s uniform, offered to mentor Tibetan youth, and was photographed in 2019 at a Tibetan New Year’s celebration standing next to U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY],” the New York Times noted on Tuesday.
The Tibetans of Queens, however, saw some “red flags” in Angwang’s behavior, including criticism of a local politician for supporting Tibetan independence and his request to take down the Tibetan flag from a community center. The community also noticed that Angwang did not actually speak Tibetan.
“He was trying to lure us by saying, ‘If you don’t do these kinds of political activities, you might get donations from big Chinese businessmen,’” Tashi Choephel, former general secretary of the Tibetan Community of New York and New Jersey, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Prosecutors previously accused Angwang of misrepresenting his family history, having learned that his parents were actually members of the Chinese Communist Party, and his brother and father were both members of the Chinese military.
According to the prosecution, Angwang developed a relationship with two officials from the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, a sinister network of international operations that spreads Communist ideology worldwide and monitors Chinese dissidents living abroad.
The United Front Work Department spawned the Confucius Institute, a program at American universities presented as a benign language and cultural exchange program, but was actually an organ of Chinese Communist propaganda. The U.S. government eventually shut down most Confucius Institutes, but the programs are reportedly rebranding to avoid their reputations.
Prosecutors said Angwang monitored Tibetans in his precinct and reported on their activities to the two Chinese officials, who worked out of the Chinese Consulate in New York. Much of the evidence against him was taken from wiretapped conversations, as summarized by the Epoch Times on Tuesday:
According to court documents, Angwang was explicit about his motivations, telling his PRC [People’s Republic of China] official handler that he wanted to get promoted within the NYPD so that he could assist the PRC and bring ‘glory to China.’
In addition, Angwang told his handler that the handler’s superiors in Beijing ‘should be happy … because you have stretched your reach into the police’,” a release from the Department of Justice said at the time.
[…]
Additionally, he was charged with committing wire fraud, making material false statements relating to information he provided on a background check form, and obstructing an official proceeding.
“Although I am overseas, I will not forget my roots. I am also Chinese and a member of the big family in the motherland,” Angwang allegedly told the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily in a 2014 interview quoted by the WSJ.
Angwang was initially held in solitary confinement because he was a police officer and was considered a major flight risk who could walk into the Chinese consulate and disappear forever but, in October 2020, a magistrate ordered him released to house arrest on a $1 million bond. The bond was posted by his family and nine friends, some of whom were fellow Marine veterans.
A U.S. district judge overruled the bond order on appeal from the federal government, which once again argued Angwang could easily escape justice with the aid of the Chinese government. In February 2021, the judge reversed his own decision and allowed Angwang released on a doubled bond of $2 million, in part because Angwang contracted Chinese coronavirus while in jail.
Angwang’s wife Heidi raised funds online to combat what she described as the “travesty” of his arrest.
“Baimadajie’s charges are wrongful and hint to the actions of yesteryear with McCarthyism and the kangaroo courts that when along with that time period,” Heidi Angwang said in her fundraising appeal.
Angwang’s lawyer John F. Carman claimed his communications with the Chinese officials were innocuous messages that were misinterpreted by overzealous prosecutors. According to Carman, Angwang was essentially trying to butter the Chinese officials up because he was hoping to obtain permission to bring his young daughter to China to visit his parents.
Angwang was scheduled to go on trial in July and could have faced up to 55 years in prison if convicted on all charges – but on Friday, prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss their case because their investigation produced “additional information bearing on the charges.”
Carman told the New York Post on Saturday that prosecutors were keeping this shocking “additional information” secret to cover themselves and “give the impression that this was a legitimate prosecution, which it was not.”
“Mr. Angwang is a great American who served his country in combat in Afghanistan and our government repaid him by treating him like he was the leader of the Taliban,” Carman charged.
Angwang was suspended from the NYPD after he was arrested, initially without pay, and was discharged from the Army Reserves. Carman said he hoped his client would be given the opportunity to return to active duty as a police officer “if he wants it.”
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