A Chinese National Allegedly Cast an Illegal Ballot in His Landlord’s Name in 2024. Then He Turned the Landlord In to Federal Agents for the Same Crime.
- 2 Felony Counts fraudulent voter registration and fraudulent voting, each carrying up to five years in prison, three years supervised release, and a $250,000 fine — Criminal complaint, DOJ, Aug. 19, 2026
- Oct. 31, 2024 the date prosecutors say Yupeng Sun cast an early, in-person ballot at Malden City Hall using his former landlord's identity — a ballot the state accepted — DOJ complaint; The Epoch Times
- June 3, 2024 the day the real J.L. and his wife had their green cards confiscated at Boston Logan Airport, after forms allegedly filed by Sun claimed they'd abandoned their status — The Epoch Times
- 0 noncitizen-voting cases Massachusetts's own verification process caught here — the scheme surfaced only after Sun's own anonymous tips against his victim drew federal scrutiny — DOJ; Newsweek
On October 31, 2024, a ballot was cast at Malden City Hall for a Massachusetts resident who is legally barred from voting in any U.S. election — a green-card holder, not a citizen. According to a federal criminal complaint unsealed August 19, 2026, the man who filled it out was not the man whose name was on it. It was his former tenant.
Federal prosecutors charge Yupeng Sun, a 33-year-old Chinese national living in Andover, Massachusetts, with fraudulently registering to vote and fraudulently voting — allegedly under the identity of J.L., the Chinese-national, lawful-permanent-resident landlord who rented Sun a room in Malden from 2021 to May 2023. As a green-card holder, J.L. cannot legally vote in any American election. Prosecutors allege Sun voted for him anyway.
The case did not surface through any citizenship check on the state’s voter rolls. According to the complaint, it surfaced because Sun later sent anonymous tips to federal investigators accusing J.L. of the very crime Sun is now charged with committing in J.L.’s name.
J.L. is identified in court filings only by his initials, matching the standard practice of protecting a crime victim’s identity. He is a Chinese national who obtained lawful permanent residence in the United States and, from 2021 through May 2023, rented Sun a room in his Malden home. As a green-card holder, J.L. is barred by law from registering to vote or casting a ballot in any federal, state, or local election.
According to the complaint, on October 10, 2024, someone using J.L.’s driver’s license number registered J.L. to vote through the online portal run by Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin (D). Three weeks later, on October 31, 2024, that registration was used to cast an early, in-person ballot at Malden City Hall in the 2024 presidential election. The state accepted it. Prosecutors allege the person who did both was Sun — not J.L.
Prosecutors and news accounts point to a motive rooted in the collapse of Sun’s tenancy. In 2023, Sun was charged with assault and battery against J.L.’s adult daughter — a charge later dismissed — and was evicted from the Malden property not long after, according to the Epoch Times and Newsweek. Investigators believe that eviction is the backdrop for what came next.
Separately from the voting scheme, prosecutors allege Sun submitted fraudulent immigration paperwork purporting to show that J.L. and his wife had abandoned their green cards. On June 3, 2024, returning from international travel through Boston Logan International Airport, J.L. and his wife had their green cards confiscated on the strength of those forms and were placed into removal proceedings — the process that can end in deportation. It took until January 2026 for an immigration judge to restore their status, after finding their testimony credible and reviewing forensic evidence that neither of them had signed the abandonment forms.
Then, according to the complaint, Sun escalated again. In April and May 2026, he allegedly sent anonymous tips to Homeland Security Investigations and to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services accusing J.L. of illegally voting as a noncitizen — the same act prosecutors now say Sun committed in J.L.’s name eighteen months earlier. Those tips, according to Homeland Security Investigations New England, are what led investigators back to the registration and ballot filed under J.L.’s identity — and from there, to Sun himself.
On July 23, 2026, federal investigators interviewed Sun. According to the complaint, he admitted the scheme — both the registration and the ballot cast under J.L.’s name. U.S. Attorney Leah B. Foley (Trump-appointed) and Assistant U.S. Attorney James J. Nagelberg announced Sun’s arrest on August 19, 2026, following a joint investigation with Homeland Security Investigations New England — led by Acting Special Agent in Charge Jeff Grimming — along with Lexington and Andover police. He faces up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine on each of the two counts, plus deportation once any sentence is served. Sun has not been indicted and has not entered a plea; under the presumption of innocence, the allegations remain just that until proven in court.
What the case exposes, independent of guilt or innocence, is a gap in how Massachusetts verifies who is asking to vote. The Secretary of the Commonwealth’s online registration portal checks a driver’s license number against state Registry of Motor Vehicles records to confirm the number is real and belongs to someone eligible. What it apparently did not catch is whether the person submitting the number online was actually the license holder. A stolen driver’s license number, per the complaint, was sufficient to register a voting-ineligible noncitizen’s identity to vote — and to cast a ballot in his name that the state accepted without incident.
Sun’s case is not the only noncitizen-voting prosecution to come out of the same U.S. Attorney’s Office this year — and unlike Sun’s, the other one has already ended in a conviction. Lina Maria Orovio-Hernandez, a Colombian national, was convicted of identity theft, passport fraud, and illegal voting in the 2024 election after investigators found surveillance video of her wearing an “I Voted” sticker on Election Day. “Her actions were not a one-time mistake or accident,” said HUD Office of Inspector General Special Agent Shawn Rice. Social Security Administration OIG Special Agent Amy Connelly added that “identity theft and fraud against federal benefit programs will not go undetected or unpunished.”
The Sun case also lands amid documented friction between Foley’s office and the state’s top election official. On March 26, 2026, Foley launched a dedicated “Benefit and Voter Fraud Team,” saying she saw “insufficient guardrails in place in Massachusetts to address the rampant benefit fraud across the state” and calling it “the tip of the iceberg.”
“I see insufficient guardrails in place in Massachusetts to address the rampant benefit fraud across the state. This is the tip of the iceberg.”
Leah B. Foley, U.S. Attorney, District of Massachusetts, March 26, 2026
Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin (D), the state’s chief election official since 1995, told GBH News his office was never contacted about the new team before its launch — a documented gap in coordination between the federal prosecutor and the state official who runs the elections she is scrutinizing.
Governor: Maura Healey (D) — elected 2022, presiding over the state during both the 2024 election in question and the 2026 prosecution.
Secretary of the Commonwealth: William F. Galvin (D) — the state’s chief election official since 1995; his office’s online voter-registration portal is the system prosecutors say Sun used to register under J.L.’s identity.
Attorney General: Andrea Campbell (D) — joined Galvin in applauding the April 2026 dismissal of a DOJ lawsuit that sought the state’s unredacted voter files.
That lawsuit, filed by the Department of Justice against Massachusetts and roughly 29 other states demanding unredacted statewide voter files for federal compliance review, was dismissed in April 2026 by U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin, an Obama appointee, who ruled the demand did not comply with Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Galvin and Campbell publicly praised the dismissal — the same state apparatus now facing a case in which a stolen driver’s license number was enough to register and vote as someone else.
The Census Bureau has begun checking the Voter Records from 2020 against their Citizenship Records. On the first 128,000,000 Voters, the Census Bureau proves that over 24,000 Noncitizens voted illegally! The Census Bureau is going to analyze the next 32,000,000 Voters, and this number will explode. I WON THE ELECTION! We must pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT.
Trump on noncitizen voting nationally, posted the same week this case broke — not a statement about Sun's case specifically.
Yupeng Sun, 33, is charged by criminal complaint with fraudulently registering and voting under the identity of his former landlord J.L. — a green-card holder legally barred from voting — in the 2024 presidential election. Prosecutors say Sun also filed fraudulent forms that led to J.L.’s green card being confiscated, then anonymously reported J.L. to federal agents for the same voting crime Sun allegedly committed against him. The scheme surfaced only because those tips drew federal scrutiny back to Sun, not because any state citizenship check caught it. Sun has not been indicted or convicted. A separate, already-resolved case from the same U.S. Attorney’s Office — the conviction of Lina Maria Orovio-Hernandez — shows this is not an isolated pattern in Massachusetts.
