Chinese billionaire Richard Liu SETTLES rape lawsuit filed by former University of Minnesota student

Chinese billionaire Richard Liu will not face charges for the alleged rape of  a Minnesota college student, attorneys for both parties said over the weekend, after reaching an undisclosed settlement to toss the bombshell case.

Jingyao Liu, 25, had accused Liu –  a famous internet entrepreneur in China who founded ecommerce giant JD.com – of raping her after following her back to her Minneapolis apartment in 2018.

The alleged encounter transpired after the pair attended a booze-filled dinner with wealthy Chinese executives where Jingyao Liu, then a 21-year-old senior tasked with entertaining the staffers, was the only woman.

The civil suit had asserted that Liu, then in his mid-40s, plied her with drinks and then forced himself upon her in his vehicle after the dinner, later raping her in her apartment. 

Liu, who stepped down as the CEO of his $77 billion Beijing-based company this year amid increased government scrutiny of China’s technology sector, had denied raping the woman, who never filed criminal charges. 

A joint statement from attorneys for both sides, however, released Saturday evening, labeled the encounter – some of which was captured on apartment building surveillance cameras – ‘a misunderstanding that has consumed substantial public attention and brought profound suffering to the parties and their families.’

The settlement came just two days before the civil trial was set to head to court Monday, with a jury of seven men and five women selected to preside over the now called-off hearing. 

Liu Jingyao, 22, and Richard Liu are shown in surveillance camera pictures on the night of the attack, going into her apartment 

‘The incident between Ms. Jingyao Liu and Mr. Richard Liu in Minnesota in 2018 resulted in a misunderstanding that has consumed substantial public attention and brought profound suffering to the parties and their families,’ the statement released late Saturday reads. 

‘Today, the parties agreed to set aside their differences, and settle their legal dispute in order to avoid further pain and suffering caused by the lawsuit.’ 

In June, Liu, 48, cashed out nearly US$1 billion from JD.com, in one of many moves to distance himself from the company he founded amid fallout from the four-year case.

JD.com is China’s largest online retailer and its biggest overall retailer, and the country’s biggest Internet company by revenue. Liu himself is worth a reported $10.9billion.   

Jingyao, a Chinese citizen, alleged the attack happened in 2018 while Liu, who has a wife in China, was in Minneapolis for a weeklong residency in the University of Minnesota’s doctor of business administration China program.

The program had been geared toward high-level executives in China, and Jingyao, then at the university on a student visa, was a volunteer in the program at the time.

Richard Liu was arrested in 2018 in Minneapolis on suspicion of felony rape, but prosecutors announced in December that he would face no criminal charges 

At a meeting with JD.com executives including Liu in April, Jingyao said the exe  forced himself upon her in his vehicle and later raped her at her apartment.

Four months later, Liu, also known as Liu Qiangdong in his native China, was arrested on suspicion of felony rape.

At the time, prosecutors said the case had ‘profound evidentiary problems’ and declined to file criminal charges. 

Jingyao Liu would then sue Liu and JD.com the next year seeking more than $50,000 in damages, alleging sexual assault and battery, along with false imprisonment. 

The case drew attention at a time when the #MeToo movement was gaining prominence in China, and saw supporters and opponents of Liu wage aggressive public relations campaigns on Chinese social media.

Accounts advocating support for Jingyao were subsequently closed down or censored, further enflaming outrage surrounding the case.

At the time, Bejing had asserted that censors shut down the accounts for ‘violating regulations.’ 

The story subsequently spread across the US where it gained further traction.

Richard Liu said he he broke no law, but that his interactions with the woman hurt his family, especially his wife, and he hoped she would accept his apology. Richard Liu and his wife Zhang Zetian are shown in Windsor, England on October 12, 2018

However, in China, Jingyao found herself the object of merciless criticism against and branded a ‘slut’ and ‘whore’ for daring to allege that the mogul attacked her.

Surveillance camera pictures and footage from the night of the alleged attack show both Liu’s entering the victim’s apartment building following the boozy executives meeting, which was also recorded by security cameras.

The young woman has since said she now sleeps with pepper spray and a stun gun on the side of her bed, after asserting in her lawsuit that she had to withdraw from classes in fall 2018 and seek counseling and treatment. 

Her attorney said she has since graduated but now suffers from severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

Two edited surveillance videos anonymously posted on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform roughly a month after the incident showed both Lius at the group dinner, in her building’s elevator, and walking arm-in-arm that night.

An attorney for Liu at that point provided American media outlets with the full, unedited surveillance videos from a restaurant and apartment complex, saying they provide a different account of what transpired. 

Jingyao Liu, meanwhile, also sent supporters surveillance videos, which they then edited themselves and posted online in support of the woman.

Surveillance video emerged last month shows the billionaire founder of JD.com Richard Liu and Jingyao Liu on the night of the incident

Lawyers for both Liu and the woman say that the footage supports their version of events of the night. Liu, his attorneys and JD have denied wrongdoing

The pair is filmed taking the elevator in the woman’s apartment building

It is not clear who is behind the account that first posted the videos. The account, called ‘Minnesota Events,’ said it was ‘exposing’ Jingyao Liu’s ‘intimate manner’ in appearing to invite Richard Liu inside her apartment. 

After the first surveillance videos were posted, some online commentators attacked Jingyao Liu, saying they were evidence she had been a willing participant.

The law firm representing Jingyao Liu said the videos are consistent with what she told law enforcement officials and alleged in her lawsuit. The videos don’t show what happened in the apartment or in her car, which are the core of her allegations.

‘An incomplete videotape and the silencing of WeChat supporters will not stop a Minnesota jury from hearing the truth,’ said Wil Florin, an attorney for the accuser.

In an interview with The New York Times at the time, Jingyao, who elected to level the charges while being identified publically, said she had become how the relentless bullying since moving forward with the suit. 

Jill Brisbois, Richard Liu’s attorney, said that the clips ‘further dispel the misinformation and false claims that have been widely circulated and clearly support the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office decision not to file charges against our client’

The woman, Jingyao Liu, is a Chinese college student at the University of Minnesota. She alleges in her lawsuit that she was groped in Richard Liu’s limousine and raped in her apartment after a dinner at Origami, a Japanese restaurant in Minneapolis

She also told of her regret at how she handled her reporting of the incident to police. 

The program Jingyao had been enlisted in when she met Liu was for the school’s Carlson School of Management, wherer job involved taking Liu and other executives, many from JD.com, jogging every morning. 

On the final day of the trip, she was invited to join the men at dinner at Origami Uptown, a Japanese restaurant, where the billionaire ordered everything on the menu for the group of 24.  

They drove to one of the executive’s homes but she said she did not want to go in so, her lawsuit claims, Qiangdong forced her back into the car then drove to her apartment.

Surveillance footage showed them struggling to find her apartment once they were in the building.

The pair walked arm and arm to her apartment where, she claims, he attacked her.

He then left. She told a male friend about what had happened and the friend called police.  

After the police declined to press charges and she filed her lawsuit, she has been eviscerated in the media. 

‘I didn’t want to report to the police in the first place because I knew this would happen. 

‘People would look at me and say, “There are too many holes in her story. She said she was drunk, but the way she walked in the video didn’t show it at all.”

‘But I didn’t say that I was so dead drunk that I couldn’t move,’ she said. 

She said in China, people label her a ‘slut’ who invited the humiliation. 

Liu took a group of 24 to Origami Uptown, a Japanese restaurant in Minneapolis, for dinner before the alleged attack. His accuser was one of four women in the group. She said she felt forced to drink and left ‘very drunk’. He paid the $2,200 bill 

‘They said that I was pretending when I couldn’t find my apartment in the building. 

‘But if I were a real gold digger, why would I take a man running around in the building for 15 minutes to find my door? They questioned why I would take a man home in the middle of the night. But it was my home, and he was Richard Liu! 

‘Who would have thought he would do that?’ she said. 

When asked if she thought she was similar to Monica Lewinsky, she at first said: ‘Of course not. I would never sleep with a married man voluntarily.’ 

But when she learned of Lewinsky’s ongoing campaign to stamp out the kind of cyber bullying they both say they suffered, she said there were similarities between them, although she said Lewinsky was braver than she was. 

‘We’re so similar! I truly admire her that after all that, she can still live a positive life. Extraordinary! 

‘I’m such a loser that I don’t even dare to read the police report,’ she said.  

Liu and his celebrity wife, Zhang Zetian. The pair live in China with their two children

Liu is married to a celebrity in China and the pair have two children. The two Lius are not related.

In statements, his attorneys have routinely said the incident involved consensual sex and that the surveillance footage proves it. 

The case was the first #MeToo scandal to hit the Chinese business world. 

Advocacy for sexual assault victims has since gained considerable traction in China despite persistent censorship efforts.

He was among a number of high-profile Chinese tech founders to fall back from running day-to-day operations at their companies amid an intense regulatory crackdown that started in late 2020, as well as the aforementioned suit.

No charges were filed against Liu in regards to the alleged incident.