Mum sobs as Chinese spy asset loses bid to stay on bail

An Australian IT consultant who provided plagiarised reports to two suspected Chinese spies will likely be jailed for more than 15 months.

Alexander Csergo wore a business suit as he walked into court for the last time on Monday morning when crown prosecutors successfully had the 59-year-old placed behind bars.

He was found guilty of reckless foreign interference by a jury on Friday after working with two individuals he suspected were with China's Ministry of State Security from late 2021 until March 2023.

Despite the verdict, his bail was continued over the weekend and barrister Iain Todd urged the court to continue it before sentence.

There was no guarantee Csergo's final sentence would exceed the 14-and-a-half months in custody after his arrest, including a year in onerous conditions in solitary confinement.

But prosecutor Jennifer Single SC pushed for Csergo's detention, saying his conduct was a very serious example of this type of offence.

The IT consultant had been running his own business, Conversys, in Shanghai and created a number of reports for two suspected spies only known as Ken and Evelyn.

The seriousness was not lessened because Csergo had not provided any classified information to Ken and Evelyn, she argued.

If he had, he would have faced a different charge, she noted.

Judge Craig Smith sided with prosecutors and revoked Csergo's bail, finding further jail time was realistically inevitable.

The businessman grimaced as the decision was handed down.

Just before the hearing, he told reporters he would appeal his conviction.

The 59-year-old's mother, Cathy Csergo, and his partner hugged the businessman in court before he was escorted away by sheriffs.

"We'll look after him," one sheriff said to his sobbing mother.

"He'll be fine."

Csergo handed over his brown shoulder bag, belt and necklace. and took a business card from his lawyer before he was taken out of the courtroom.

The matter will return on Friday to schedule a sentence hearing.

The offender's mother and barrister did not speak to reporters afterwards.

The 59-year-old was approached on LinkedIn in late 2021 by a woman claiming she worked for a Chinese think tank that wanted information not publicly available.

Csergo produced a number of reports on mining, defence and security using open-source material, plus information he falsely claimed came from experts, including former prime minister Kevin Rudd.

In a statement read to the court during the trial, Dr Rudd denied ever meeting or talking to the IT consultant.

Csergo would hand over these reports to Ken or Evelyn in restaurants or cafes, which were sometimes empty.

He was given envelopes containing thousands of dollars in cash.

The 59-year-old is the second person to be convicted under Australia's foreign interference laws.

The first was Di Sanh "Sunny" Duong, a former Liberal candidate who used a $37,000 charity cheque to get closer to a cabinet member Robert Clark, believing he would one day be prime minister.

Duong had been acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

In February 2024, the then-68-year-old was jailed for a head sentence of two years and nine months in Victoria's County Court.

He was given a non-parole period of 12 months.

Duong was a member of Victoria's Liberal Party and unsuccessfully ran as a state parliament candidate in 1996.