US Prosecutors Claim Funds Received by Sue Terry Came from 'Highest Levels of NIS'

US federal prosecutors have claimed that funds received by Sue Terry, a former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) indicted about two years ago for allegedly working for the South Korean government without registering with the US government, originated from the "highest levels of the National Intelligence Service (NIS)."

According to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on the 11th (local time), prosecutors made the claim in a court filing submitted on September 28 to counter a motion by Terry's legal team to suppress evidence.

Terry, a Korean-American North Korea expert and former CIA analyst, was indicted in July 2024 on charges of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

In the response brief, prosecutors stated, "Listening to the audio recording from the cafe [where the funds were received] and the defendant's statements, the defendant was aware that the NIS funding directly contributed to her salary, and she knew that the funds came from the highest levels of the NIS."

They added, "With this awareness, she attempted to conceal the source of the NIS funds from the Woodrow Wilson Center [where she was employed at the time]," noting that "this is strong evidence directly tied to the willfulness requirement of a FARA violation."

Controversy is expected as prosecutors publicly named three NIS handlers who contacted Terry while explaining core evidence and the circumstances of the case in the brief.

Previously, at the time of her indictment in 2024, prosecutors revealed that Terry had received luxury meals, expensive clothing, handbags, and hefty research funding from the NIS and others over a span of about 10 years, even releasing photographs showing the agents in the indictment.

However, Terry's side has argued that her contacts with South Korean government officials were routine professional relationships as an expert on North Korea and Korean Peninsula policy, and that prosecutors presenting them as evidence of FARA violations and other charges is problematic.

Following fierce evidentiary battles and issue coordination, a jury trial for this case is scheduled to begin on the 27th, about two years after her indictment.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.