Upper West Side resident and former C.I.A analyst Sue Mi Terry, 54, was indicted on July 16 for allegedly assisting South Korean spies, providing them with access and information for over a decade in exchange for luxury goods such as designer handbags, Michelin-starred meals, and five-figure checks.
According to prosecutors, Terry neglected to register as a foreign agent as mandated by federal law and thus is facing two counts–one for failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and one for conspiring to violate it. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Prosecutors say Terry’s illegal operations as a foreign agent for South Korea began in 2013, five years after she left the C.I.A. There she was an analyst on East Asian issues, and from around 2001 to 2011, she occupied several government positions, including the Director for Korea, Japan, and Oceanic Affairs for the White House National Security Council, and the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council. According to a 2023 interview between Terry and the F.B.I., she left the C.I.A. not at her own volition but rather due to the agency’s concerns about her relations with South Korean intelligence officers.
Evidently, the government feels those concerns were valid.
After leaving government service, Terry began working at think tanks in NYC and Washington D.C., which would become the accounts where allegedly laundered money from the South Korean government was deposited.
Her Linkedin page describes her as “a widely respected expert on the Korean Peninsula, U.S.-Korea relations, and security issues in Northeast Asia.”
She was also a spy for South Korea, according to the indictment, which charges she received $37,000 in funding for her Korean affairs think tank, deposited into a gift account that only she could access.
Terry also received a $2,950 Bottega Veneta handbag, a $3,450 Louis Vuitton handbag, and a $2,845 Dolce & Gabbana coat, as well as expensive dinners rewarding her for her service, federal prosecutors charge. The handbags were purchased during Terry’s shopping trips with South Korean intelligence officers–her handlers–who she would provide with classified information from the U.S. government to earn these luxury goods, according to prosecutors.
As alleged in the indictment, in one instance Terry attended a private, off-the-record meeting with the U.S. Secretary of State regarding the government’s policy toward North Korea. Promptly after the meeting, Terry met with one of her handlers and gave them handwritten notes detailing the private meeting, which the handler then photographed.
Terry also hosted a happy hour for Congressional staff at the request of a South Korean intelligence officer, which they attended, posing as a diplomat to mingle and collect information. The South Korean government discreetly funded the entire event.
In addition to these blatant displays of espionage, prosecutors said Terry was also paid by South Korea to write articles in both the Korean and American press relaying positions and phrases provided by the South Korean government, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Terry also recruited her husband, historian Max Boot, 54, to co-write a series of opinion pieces for the Washington Post where Boot works as a columnist covering national security and foreign policy. These articles were requested by Terry’s handlers to further advance South Korea’s agenda.
According to the New York Post, Boot signed a $500,000 “appearance bond” using their $1.8 million UWS home as collateral to keep Terry out of prison until her trial begins, her next court appearance being July 30.
Terry denied she was a foreign agent when approached by the New York Post during the week of her indictment and told the publication “It will all be explained… My lawyers are working on it.”
Directly after Terry’s arrest on July 16, the D.C.-based think tank where she worked removed her bio from its website.
“Compromising national security endangers every American by weakening our defenses and putting lives at risk,” said FBI Acting Assistant Director in Charge Christie M. Curtis in a press release.
“This arrest sends a clear message: the FBI will pursue and arrest anyone who endangers our nation’s security by collaborating with foreign spies.”
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