Chinese students jailed by US court
Print Edition
THREE students from China have been jailed by a US court after being found guilty of stripping, beating and burning a classmate and attacking another girl.
Their victims were also Chinese students in southern California.
Zhai Yunyao was sentenced to 13 years, Yang Yuhan got 10 years, and Zhang Xinlei received a six-year term. All three apologized in court.
“I hope they do not carry the wounds from what I did for the rest of their lives,” Zhai wrote of the victims in a statement read by her attorney.
The 19-year-olds were accused of bullying a 16-year-old girl who was punched and slapped last March at a restaurant and park in Rowland Heights, east of Los Angeles.
Two days later, prosecutors said, they kidnapped an 18-year-old classmate and took her to a park where she was stripped, beaten, punched, kicked, spat on, burned with cigarettes and forced to eat her own hair during a five-hour assault.
The 16-year-old was attacked because Zhai felt she had disrespected her, and the other woman was attacked because of disputes over a boy and an unpaid restaurant bill.
The defendants pleaded no contest last month to kidnapping and assault. A charge of torture, which carries a potential life sentence, was dropped.
Zhai said living so far from her parents played a role in her actions. “They sent me to the US for a better life and a fuller education,” she wrote. “Along with that came a lot of freedom, in fact too much freedom. Here, I became lonely and lost. I didn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want them to worry about me.”
In a letter read by her attorney, Yang said: “Parents in China are well-meaning and send their kids thousands of miles away with no supervision and too much freedom. That is a formula for disaster.”
Prosecutor Casey Jarvis said the woman who was stripped and burned had forgiven her attackers.
A 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were previously sentenced to juvenile camp for their roles in the attacks. Another man, Zheng Lu, 20, is facing trial on charges of kidnapping, torture and assault. Other teenagers involved are believed to have left the country.
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