When the 21-year-old University of Minnesota student returned to her apartment in Minneapolis, Chinese billionaire Liu Qiangdong was there.In the middle of the night, she sent a message to a friend on WeChat that Liu forced her to have sex.
I don’t want to. At 2 am on August 31, she wrote in Chinese on WeChat, “Tomorrow I will find a way to escape.” She also asked her friends not to call the police.
He will definitely suppress the matter, she said, he refers to Liu Qiangdong here, don't underestimate his power.
The WeChat messages seen by Reuters have not been previously reported.A lawyer for the girl, Wil Florin, confirmed that the WeChat content was indeed sent by the girl.
Liu Qiangdong, founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant, was arrested the next day on suspicion of rape, according to police reports.He has since been released without charge and his lawyer has denied any wrongdoing.After his release, Liu Qiangdong returned to China and promised to cooperate with the Minneapolis police investigation.
A lawyer for Liu Qiangdong, Jill Brisbois, said he maintained his innocence and fully cooperated with the investigation.These allegations are inconsistent with the evidence we hope will be disclosed to the public after the case is closed, Brisbos wrote in an email.
When Reuters asked more details about the victim girl's WeChat message and other findings, JD.com spokeswoman Loretta Chao said that when more information is released, people will know that the WeChat message is only one-sided.
Florin Roebig and Hang Associates, a law firm representing the victim, wrote in an email that their client had fully cooperated with the police investigation and was prepared to assist prosecutors.When asked whether the parties planned to file a civil lawsuit against Liu Qiangdong, Florin replied that the legal actions taken by Mr. Liu and others will be announced at an appropriate time.
Both Liu Qiangdong and the student representative refused to be interviewed by Reuters.
The police have handed over the preliminary investigation structure of the matter to local prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute Liu Qiangdong.According to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, there is no deadline for a decision on when charges will be charged.
Minneapolis police and the Hennepin County prosecutor declined to comment on detailed questions from Reuters.
Reuters has so far been unable to identify the victim, whose identity has never been made public.But based on WeChat messages she sent to two friends, as well as interviews with six people familiar with the matter, they provide new information on the exchanges between Liu Qiangdong and the woman, a Chinese student at the University of Minnesota.
The case has drawn intense international and Chinese attention.In China, almost everyone knows Liu Qiangdong's entrepreneurial story.The 45-year-old Liu Qiangdong later married Zhang Zetian, a milk tea sister who was nearly 20 years younger than him.
As the second largest e-commerce site in China after Alibaba, JD.com has investors including Wal-Mart, Google and China's Tencent.
Liu Qiangdong holds nearly 80% of the voting rights in Beijing.The company’s shares have fallen about 15 percent since Liu’s arrest and nearly 36 percent for the year.
This is a trap
According to data from the University of Minnesota, Liu Qiangdong was briefly attending a business doctoral program jointly launched by the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and Tsinghua University in Minneapolis at the time.This course is designed for senior executives in China.
According to restaurant staff and surveillance video obtained by Reuters, on the evening of August 30, Liu Qiangdong held a dinner with about 24 people at Origami Uptown, a Japanese restaurant in Minneapolis, including about 20 men.The group consumed a great deal of wine, sake, and beer.
Liu Qiangdong -- worth an estimated $6.7 billion, according to Forbes -- glanced at the menu and told the waiter that he wanted everything on that page, a restaurant employee said.The group of them brought in at least one case of wine from outside.
Surveillance video from the restaurant showed the table toasting each other throughout the night.
Afterwards, the victim told a second friend on WeChat that she was stressed out drinking that night.
It was a trap, she said, and later added that I had really had too much to drink.
The dinner ended at 9:30 p.m., and the receipt showed a total of $2,200 spent.Surveillance video from the restaurant showed a drunk guest being dragged away by three other colleagues.
Liu Qiangdong and the victim then went to a house in Minneapolis together, according to a person familiar with the matter.Another person said that the house was rented by a classmate of Liu Qiangdong in the academic program in order to provide entertainment, smoking, drinking and Chinese food for the class every night.
But they did not enter the house.A person with knowledge of the matter said he saw Liu and the girl standing outside the house before Liu took her into his rented car.On WeChat, the female student sent a message to a friend for a few hours, saying that Liu started to touch me in the car.
I told him not to...hellip;hellip; but he wouldn't listen, she wrote.In the end, they returned to the girl's apartment, the source said.Reuters could not confirm what happened in the next two hours.According to police reports, the alleged rape occurred around 1 a.m.
The victim then contacted a student at the University of Minnesota, who called the police, according to two people familiar with the matter and her WeChat messages.
Another person familiar with the matter said that Minnesota police went to the girl's apartment that morning, and Liu Qiangdong was there at the time, but did not arrest anyone.Reuters could not confirm exactly what happened after the police visit, but the woman declined to press charges against Liu's presence, the source said.
In a WeChat chat with another friend, she asked her friend why a billionaire like Liu Qiangdong would be interested in an ordinary girl like herself.
If it were me, I would have died right away, she said, but I couldn't bear to make my parents sad.
On Friday morning, she texted two more close friends saying she had spoken to several people about what happened, including the police, some friends and at least one teacher.She wrote that she would keep her own sheets and the evidence must not be lost, she said.
On Friday afternoon, people familiar with the matter said the student went to the hospital for a sexual assault forensic examination.
Police arrived at the University of Minnesota office shortly after receiving the call around 9 p.m.People familiar with the matter said that the female student and school representatives were in that office and accused Liu Qiangdong of rape.Representatives from the University of Minnesota declined to comment on details.
Liu Qiangdong came to the university office around 11 p.m., and the police were there.Liu Qiangdong remained expressionless as a police officer handcuffed him.I need a translator, he said.17 hours later, Liu Qiangdong was released.Minnesota police have previously said they cannot detain a suspect for more than 36 hours without charges.
A few days later, Liu Qiangdong appeared in China, not involved in the extradition treaty.
Liu Qiangdong returned to Beijing to start work immediately after returning to China. He will continue to be in charge of company management. A JD.com spokeswoman told Reuters that JD.com's daily operations were not affected or interrupted.
