It turns out that there were not just three Chinese students in Los Angeles who kidnapped, stripped naked and tortured a female Chinese student. The three were sentenced in January 2016, and after serving their sentence, would be deported to China.
LA Times reported on Tuesday that a fourth student was involved in the case. After pleading guilty to assault, the California court sentenced 20-year-old Zheng Lu, a fourth year high school student, to three years prison term.
LA County Superior Court Judge Salvatore Sirna approved the sentence, while Zheng Lu did not make a statement and was handcuffed by the sheriff’s deputy. It remains unclear what Zheng Lu’s role was in the March 30, 2015, attack at Rowland Heights park on an 18-year-old female Chinese student whose clothes were forcibly removed, kicked with high-heeled shoes, slapped and burned with cigarettes.
To only clear detail, based on the victim’s testimony, was an unpaid restaurant bill. But AsiaOne then reported that the jealousy of one of the female defendants triggered the crime.
Zheng Lu was prosecuted separately from Yunyao “Helen” Zhai, Xinlei “John” Zhang and Yuhan “Coco” Yang who were charged in June and prosecuted together. Zheng Lu was arrested only in December 2015 and was prosecuted separately.
The involvement in crime of the Chinese students, who came to the U.S. to study, highlights the danger of allowing youth to live overseas on their own without parental supervision. Sirna commented that the case reminded him of the 1954 novel of William Golding, “Lord of the Flies,” about boys stranded on a deserted island sans adults which resulted in trouble.