The U.S. Justice Department will drop its prosecution of Sue Mi Terry, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst who was charged with taking part in covert activities for the South Korean government and accepting expensive gifts.
The decision came after Terry, a Korean American and a leading expert on North Korea, reached an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, The New York Times reported on the 13th.
Terry was charged in July 2024, while she was a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by acting as an unregistered agent of the South Korean government. FARA requires anyone representing foreign interests in the United States to register with the Justice Department and report their activities. Prosecutors said she worked on behalf of South Korea without doing so. Her jury trial had been set for the 27th.
Lee Wolosky, Terry's attorney, said in a statement that she had served the country faithfully for many years. Her contacts with South Korean officials, he said, were part of her work as a prominent expert on North Korea and East Asia aimed at advancing U.S. national interests.
In a two-page letter filed with the court the same day, the Southern District prosecutors did not spell out why they had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement. They said only that the agreement served the best interests of both the United States and Terry. Under a DPA, prosecutors drop the charges after a set period if the defendant fulfills all of the agreed terms.
As part of the agreement, Terry acknowledged that she had provided assistance, including relaying the contents of a meeting with the secretary of state to South Korean intelligence officers, and that she had received luxury gifts. The agreement also bars her from speaking with South Korean intelligence officials for one year.
In a filing submitted to the court late last month during trial preparations, federal prosecutors alleged that the money Terry received came from the highest levels of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. When they brought the charges in 2024, prosecutors said she had received expensive meals, high-end clothing and handbags, and large research payments from the NIS and other sources over more than a decade. The indictment included photographs showing an intelligence officer.
Terry has countered that her contacts with South Korean government officials were an ordinary working relationship for an expert on North Korea and Korean Peninsula policy, and that it was improper for prosecutors to present them as evidence of a FARA violation.