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(Bloomberg) – It was a Thursday night at the end of August and a crowd had gathered at the Origami Sushi restaurant in Minneapolis. A guest, a 21-year-old student from the University of Minnesota, originally waited for a dinner in honor of volunteers like her.
Instead, she found herself surrounded by over a dozen Chinese leaders, male participants of a Ph.D. program in management for which she had volunteered. Among them was Charlie Yao, a Chinese businessman she had met a few days earlier – and who had invited her to dinner. Yao asked him to sit next to Richard Liu, one of China's richest men and CEO of e-commerce giant JD.com Inc.'s guest. student was relegated to another table, alongside the badistants of the direction.
This story is based on documents, the student's statement to the police and her WeChat messages to a friend, which were reviewed by Bloomberg. His lawyer, Wil Florin, also spoke to Bloomberg. The role played by Yao in the student's dinner invitation, described here for the first time, sheds new light on the events that took place on August 30 and peaked early the next morning, when the young woman said that she had been raped by Liu. in his appartment. Liu denied the allegations. Yao, who was not accused of wrongdoing by the authorities, could not be reached for comment.
During the evening, the wine flowed freely. Liu and other men at the table repeatedly grilled the woman, using the Chinese expression "ganbei" or "dry cup," a strong encouragement in Chinese social and commercial circles to leave her drink empty. According to her, she was forced to drink alcohol, she wrote the next day to a friend via the WeChat messaging tool. "Why did not one of these wealthy, old CEOs act as a mature CEO and not protect her rather than force her to culturally drink?" Said Florin.
Liu, who was stopped the next evening and detained for nearly 17 hours before being released without any charges being laid, he returned to China shortly thereafter. "This version of events is filled with unfounded information, coming from sources that clearly have an agenda," said Jill Brisbois, a lawyer for Liu. "Because of the ongoing investigation, Richard can not defend himself in the media. We urge everyone to wait for the prosecutor's decision instead of continuing to present a one-sided and inaccurate account. When all relevant evidence is disclosed, Richard's innocence and his full story will become clear. "
A JD.com representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He referred to a previously published statement that Liu had been "released without charge and without bail conditions".
The Minneapolis Police Department completed its investigation and, in September, turned the case over to prosecutors from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, the county attorney said at the time. Prosecutors are now weighing when it is necessary to lay criminal charges. In a criminal case, prosecutors must prove their guilt "beyond reasonable doubt" in legal terms. In civil cases, the plaintiff must simply show that it is more likely than not that the defendant committed the wrongful act.
The news of rape charges has shocked the world and adds to the concern over the role of men in leading companies. A little over a year after the creation of the #MeToo movement in the United States, charges of badual harbadment and badual badault were filed against more than 400 men, the majority of whom are Americans, and have ended the career of prominent businessmen and journalists. and artists.
JD.com investors have become aware of this and the company's shares have fallen by 33% since the end of August. Liu's oversized control of voting rights tightly ties the company's destiny to his own destiny, badysts said. "When people think of JD, they think of Richard Liu because he is the visionary founder," said Mitchell Kim, an badyst at Kim Eng Securities in Hong Kong. "Investors are attentive to the name and we all badume that it is he who directs the strategic vision of the company." Kim added that "if he were to be charged, there would be even more reaction against the actions".
Liu was in the United States as part of a doctoral program led by the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and Tsinghua Chinese University, focused on the titans of Chinese industry. Much of the courses are held in Beijing, with a high residential component in the United States. The University of Minnesota declined to comment on this story.
Yao, chairman of the Jumbo Sheen Enterprises Group, a Shenzhen-based equity investment and fund management group, also attended the conference, according to a paper presenting PhD students. In her police report, the accuser said that she had met Yao earlier in the week through her role as volunteer coordinator for organized running. He gained his trust after several conversations and offered him a job in his business after graduation, she said. Liu had asked Yao to ensure that the student attends dinner, according to Florin, of the law firm Florin Roebig. Yao did not respond to e-mails asking for comments. A receptionist at Jumbo Sheen headquarters in Shenzhen said that Yao was traveling and refused to say when he would come back. Yao also serves on the board of Rici Healthcare Holdings. A representative from Rici said the company could not comment on this.
According to the student's WeChat messages and her statement to the local police, those present at the dinner drank large amounts of alcohol. His friend and Liu's badistant, who are neither clearly identified in the documents reviewed by Bloomberg, were invited to do two wine races during the evening, buying 32 bottles in total, according to the student's lawyer and photos and documents reviewed by Bloomberg.
At one point in the evening, another manager of the management program called the student's friend, also a volunteer, for another dinner, half an hour away, Florin said. Later that night, she left with Liu and traveled with him in a limousine to a place she could not identify. At the back of the car, he tried to kiss her and undress, she said in her statement. "You have a wife and you have children," she told him. "Do not do that, I do not want to do that." After she repeatedly asked him to drive her back to his apartment, he gave in.
Some details of the police report had already been reported by the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Reuters.
Upon arriving at her apartment, she exited the vehicle, followed by Liu, who told her driver and badistant to wait in the car. Once inside, he tried to undress and throw her on the bed, and she was able to "escape from her" briefly, she said. She told him no and resisted her advances several times, according to her statement.
Liu then pressured her to have a shower with him. When she refused, he tried to pull her against the will. He stepped out of the shower and headed to his room as she headed for the restroom, locked the door and changed clothes wet from the shower. When she came out, she found him naked on her bed. He refused to leave. Finally, she said, "He threw me on the bed" and "he held my shoulders so I could not move." From there, he started having bad with her against his will, she told the police.
She said that she had kept her sheets as proof.
Contact the publisher Yang Ge ([email protected])
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