PITTSFIELD — A judge has outlined a proposed resolution in a firearms case against Chao Yu, a Williamstown man and outspoken critic of the Falun Gong–affiliated dance company Shen Yun, indicating the charges could be dismissed without a conviction if a plea moves forward, according to court filings.
Judge Jeremy Bucci last week indicted he would impose a six-month continuance without a finding of guilt on four counts against Yu, filings show. Prosecutors indicated they would dismiss the remaining charges.
The judge’s suggestion came after Yu’s lawyer filed a detailed sentencing memorandum in which she described her client as a former political prisoner in China whose life has been shaped by religious persecution, exile and whistleblowing against powerful institutions.
In the filing, defense lawyer Megan Siddall said Yu was a longtime practitioner of Falun Gong who spent nearly a decade imprisoned in China for helping Western journalists communicate with adherents of the banned spiritual movement.
She wrote that Yu was subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation and the denial of basic hygiene and medical care while incarcerated. He eventually secured asylum in the United States and became a U.S. citizen.
Yu later turned his attention to Shen Yun Performing Arts, a global dance company affiliated with Falun Gong, after she stated that performers confided in him about abuse and mistreatment, the memo says.
Siddall wrote that Yu was “disgusted to learn that his beloved Falun Gong was itself engaging in the kind of conduct he had previously condemned,” and he reported those concerns to the National Human Trafficking Hotline and publicly criticized Shen Yun through YouTube videos and interviews with journalists. She said his actions triggered retaliation.
Siddall write that Shen Yun or Falun Gong affiliates falsely portrayed Yu as dangerous to federal authorities, which led to an FBI bulletin and, ultimately, law enforcement scrutiny of his firearms possession. Yu has denied making threats toward the organizations, and has said statements cited by authorities were mistranslated from Chinese.
Siddall argued that Yu cooperated fully with police, voluntarily disclosed the presence of firearms and ammunition in his home, which she wrote that and acknowledged that he failed to comply with Massachusetts licensing requirements after moving from Minnesota, where the weapons were legally purchased. The memo emphasized that Yu has no criminal history and does not pose a danger to the public.
Siddall wrote that Yu obtained the firearms for self-protection, citing his history of imprisonment in China and his fear of retaliation after publicly criticizing Shen Yun and Falun Gong leadership.
Attached to the filing were multiple letters of support submitted on Yu’s behalf, including one from his adult son, an Army Reserve sergeant preparing to attend officer candidate school. In his letter, his son Yu “risked his own life and freedom” to protect others.
Another letter came from a couple who said they befriended Yu shortly after he arrived in the United States in 2013 while seeking asylum. They described helping Yu navigate American life, improve his English and settle his family, portraying him as thoughtful, hardworking and ethical.
A third letter was submitted by Ian Johnson, a journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of China’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Johnson wrote that Yu played a critical role in his reporting, at great risk to his own personal safety.
Siddall urged the court to resolve the case with a continuance without a finding of guilt and a brief period of administrative probation, after which point the charges would be dismissed. She argued that further punishment would neither serve public safety nor deter future misconduct.
A plea change hearing has been set for Dec. 22. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts each of possessing a large-capacity firearm, possessing a large-capacity feeding device and possessing ammunition without an FID card.
PITTSFIELD — Weapons and other evidence found at the home of a Williamstown man should be excluded from the case because of the way the police search was handled, according to a defense attorney.
Richard Chambers, Yu’s attorney, said that he intends to file a motion to suppress that evidence based on his review of pretrial discovery in the case, indicating he will challenge the warrant authorities used to search his client’s home in September 2023.
During that search, officers reported finding an AR-15 rifle, a 9 mm pistol, 645 rounds of ammunition and high-capacity magazines, according to court documents. Yu was arrested and has pleaded not guilty to unlawful possession of firearms.
Prosecutors allege that a 60-day grace period for obtaining a gun license after moving to the state had passed, making the weapons illegally possessed.
But in a previous motion to dismiss filed in November, Chambers argued that Yu purchased the firearms legally while living in Minnesota, and his firearms license was pending in Massachusetts when the case began. He said prosecutors failed to demonstrate when the guns actually entered the state, and thus could not show that grace period had closed.
Judge John Agostini denied the motion the following week, setting the stage for ongoing pretrial litigation.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Chambers told Agostini of his intent to file the motion to suppress evidence based on how the police search was conducted.
He said he could compile that argument and submit a pleading to the court within two weeks, after which a hearing will be scheduled, possibly including testimony from police officers who were involved.
Yu, who appeared remotely at the hearing via videoconference, asked to make a statement to the court. Chambers advised against it, and the two met privately in a separate videoconference before returning to the public session.
Chambers told the court Yu is concerned about an ongoing investigation that is retaliation to his role as a whistleblower.
“He just wanted the court to understand that there was more to this case than just simply him being charged for the firearms,” Chambers said, adding that he will incorporate those concerns into the forthcoming motion to suppress.
Agostini said he understood “there was some undercurrent” to the case and “this is not as narrow an issue as some people may think.” Chambers also relayed Yu’s concerns about the public nature of the court hearing, and Agostini said Chambers is free to seek protective orders for future court filings if he believes it necessary.
Yu is among the vocal critics of Shen Yun Performing Arts, which is operated by the Falun Gong faith. While condemning the practices of Shen Yun, Yu also stated last year that he is a Falun Gong practitioner, which is banned in his native China, leading him to seek asylum in the United States.
Shen Yun is at the center of a lawsuit accusing it of forced labor and human trafficking, according to The New York Times, which has also reported on exploitation of young dancers by Shen Yun and its murky links to the publication The Epoch Times.
Yu says he was excommunicated from Falun Gong after gathering testimony about its “horrific practices” and sharing it with the world.
Law enforcement characterized the video as threatening, while Yu said that conclusion was based on a mistranslation of his actual message, which was delivered in Chinese.
PITTSFIELD — A lawyer for a Williamstown man and outspoken critic of the Shen Yun dance troupe filed a motion to dismiss his client’s illegal firearms possession case.
Chao Yu stands accused of possessing an AR15 rifle, a 9 mm pistol, 645 rounds of ammunition and high-capacity magazines in his home without a valid Massachusetts gun license. But defense lawyer Richard Chambers Jr. said the firearms were legally purchased in Minnesota, where Yu used to live.
That’s significant because Yu had a 60-day window to obtain his gun license from the time when the weapons entered the state, Chambers argued at a Monday hearing in front of Judge John Agostini in Berkshire Superior Court. Without evidence about when the firearms entered the state, prosecutors were unable to prove that Yu blew the deadline.
Yu’s firearms license application was still pending at the time police seized his weapons.
“There was no evidence before the grand jury as to when the … firearms were brought by the defendant into the commonwealth,” Chambers said.
“There was not probable cause to indict,” he added.
Assistant District Attorney Jocelyn McGrath countered that Chambers’ reading of the gun statute was incorrect, saying that the 60-day window began when the gun owner enters the state, not the guns themselves.
By that metric, she said Yu’s “grace period” for obtaining his gun license had elapsed, since Yu moved to the state in 2022.
Agostini listened to the arguments and said he would issue a decision on Yu’s motion to dismiss at a later date. If he denies the motion to dismiss, the case will likely proceed on track toward a trial or possible plea.
Yu is free on his own recognizance as the case remains pending in Berkshire Superior Court. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts each of possessing a large-capacity firearm, possessing a large-capacity feeding device and possessing ammunition without an FID card.
The investigation into his firearms began after the FBI last year accused him of making “threats” in a YouTube video toward the Falun Gong compound in Cuddebackville, N.Y.
Yu denied the allegation, and said it was based on a misinterpretation of what he was saying in Chinese.
Yu has spoken out against Falun Gong and the dance troupe it’s tied to, Shen Yun, which he said mistreats its juvenile dancers. His claims were echoed in a new lawsuit a former Shen Yun dancer filed against the organization, who accuses it of forced labor, human trafficking and exploitation of its young performers.
Yu said he was a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned in China, and fled to the U.S. He speaks out against Shen Yun on his YouTube channel.
PITTSFIELD — As one of millions of practitioners of the banned Falun Gong religion in his native China, Chao Yu says he was once in the Communist party’s crosshairs.
On Monday, Yu stood outside Berkshire Superior Court next to his lawyer, Richard Chambers Jr.
Yu, 51, sought asylum in United States and received his citizenship about two years ago, according to Chambers. Yu now lives in Williamstown
Now, Yu said he’s fighting on two fronts. One is against what he says is wrongdoing by Falun Gong leaders of the spiritual movement that, in many ways, defined much of his life. His other battle is a legal one — against felony gun possession charges in Berkshire Superior Court. The two battles are linked, Yu said after his arraignment Monday.
It started, Yu said, when he began to speak out against the leadership of Falun Gong. Specifically, he claimed Falun Gong mistreats its juvenile dancers in Shen Yun, the performing arts troupe Falun Gong operates.
“After I came to the United States, in the recent 10 years, I gradually found the dark side of Falun Gong,” said Yu.
Shen Yun achieved notoriety in the United States with its ubiquitous promotions. Falun Gong, a spiritual movement founded by Li Hongzhi in China in 1992, was banned by the Chinese government, which labeled the group a cult. Falun Gong is also anti-Communist.
Shen Yun’s global headquarters, known as Dragon Springs, is located in Deerpark, N.Y., about 100 miles west of Berkshire County.
Adherents see meditation and other forms of spiritual practice as means to seek enlightenment and representative of traditional Chinese values lost in the Communist revolution. They see the movement’s founding leader, Li Hongzhi, as a “God-like figure who can levitate, walk through walls and see into the future,” according to ABC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny‘s piece about The Epoch Times, the conservative news organization run by Falong Gong.
Yu still identifies as a practitioner of Falun Gong, but says some adherents are being spiritually abused. He spreads his message to more than 30,000 subscribers on YouTube.
“What they are doing goes directly against what what I have fought for. I spent nine years, eight months and 23 days in jail, in custody, in China, to defend the core value of truthfulness, compassion, forbearance,” Yu said, referencing the principles of Falun Gong.
His videos caught the attention of federal authorities, which resulted in a Sept. 7 bulletin that Yu “made threats” toward the Falun Gong compound in New York, according to a police report by Williamstown Police Sgt. Shaun William.
“In one of his most recent videos Yu Chao claimed he wanted to be on a ‘suicide squad’ and had videos from 2020 demonstrating loading his guns,” the FBI officer safety bulletin said.
In an interview with The Eagle, Yu denied threatening Falun Gong, and blamed Shen Yun for reporting him to the FBI.
Yu said the claim that he had “stated he wanted to be part of a ‘suicide squad,'” was incorrect and based on the mistranslation of Chinese. Rather, he said he was describing his willingness to keep speaking out despite feeling the threat of retaliation.
“What I mean definitely cannot be translated into ‘suicide squad’ in such kind of context,” Yu said.
Yu said he bought the firearms legally when he was living in Minnesota, where he said the video in question were also filmed.
“In Minnesota, you don’t need a license to carry like you do in Massachusetts. He moved to Massachusetts, he had those legally purchase firearms from Minnesota,” said Chambers, Yu’s lawyer.
Yu applied for his Massachusetts firearms license on Aug. 28, but his application hadn’t been accepted yet, according to the police report.
The officer said Yu had Massachusetts residency since 2022 and had “ample time to properly transfer his firearms and get an LTC.”
Yu told the FBI agents he feared for his life.
Police filed charges against Yu in Northern Berkshire District Court in September for the illegal possession of an AR-15 rifle, a 9 mm pistol, 645 rounds of ammunition and high-capacity magazines in his home. He was ordered to surrender his passport.
Chambers said Yu rejected a plea offer from prosecutors that would have carried an 18 month jail sentence. So prosecutors presented the case to a Berkshire County grand jury, which indicted him on two counts each of possessing a large-capacity firearm, possessing a large-capacity feeding device and possessing ammunition without an FID card.
He was arraigned Monday and pleaded not guilty. Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Ilberg-Lamm said during the hearing that Yu has complied with orders while on pretrial release and cooperated with investigators.
Yu said his quest to shed light on Falun Gong isn’t over.
“I just cannot be silent,” he said. “I just cannot be silent.”
陳旭@perth 