A woman who said she was raped by Chinese billionaire Richard Liu told police she pleaded with him to stop as he attacked her after a night of drinking.
The founder of the Beijing-based e-commerce site JD.com was arrested on August 31 in Minneapolis, released without charges and returned to China, according to documents seen by the Star Tribune.
Prosecutors in Minneapolis are reviewing the case, but there is no timeline for when they might make a charging decision.
Chinese billionaire Richard Liu (pictured) was arrested after a student claimed he raped her in her apartment in Minnesota after a night of drinking while at a dinner with a large group
Liu, 45, is a student with the Carlson School of Management’s doctor of business administration China program and was in Minneapolis for a weeklong residency. His attorneys have said he’s innocent.
The alleged victim is from China and is a student at the University of Minnesota.
Her Florida-based attorney, Wil Florin, confirmed that she attended dinner on August 30 with Liu and others in which liquor was served and she felt coerced to drink.
According to materials viewed by the newspaper, the woman told a friend by text message that after the dinner, Liu dragged her into a vehicle and made advances.
‘I begged him to stop but he didn’t listen, one text read. She told police he followed her inside the apartment and pulled off her clothes as she protested. She told police, ‘I told him ‘no’ several times’.
The woman also told investigators that she escaped from him and started to redress herself before he threw her on the bed and raped her.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office assesses whether to charge Chinese billionaire Richard Liu with sexual assault.
Liu is an internet entrepreneur and one of the country’s wealthiest men in China
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office are currently assessing whether to charge Richard Liu with sexual assault
‘I didn’t do it willingly. I want to escape,’ she texted a friend in Mandarin, adding that Liu was in her bed. I couldn’t escape.
‘How could I know that Qiangdong Liu would come to mess with me. I’m just a normal girl. I’m not eyeing anyone’s deep pocket. I repeatedly begged him not to touch me’.
Afterward, she used the messaging system WeChat to text friends about what happened and whether she would report it.
‘We were battling against each other on the bed and finally I escaped from him and went back to the living room and put the bra back on again,’ she said in the interview.
‘Finally, he just threw me onto the bed. He was on me. He was heavy. I tried to push him away. But he was on top of me and then he raped me.
‘He is going to exercise his power. You underestimate him’.
The woman’s lawyer Will Florin (pictured) said she has fully cooperated with police and stands ready to cooperate with the county attorney
‘Don’t call the police’. According to a source, the 21-year-old also sent a text to the male friend who had accompanied her that night, telling him of the sexual assault. He drove to her apartment complex and called 911 from outside.
The woman eventually gave a statement to police and Liu was arrested.
Jill Brisbois, one of Liu’s attorneys, told the Star Tribune she could not discuss the case or share evidence with the media because they do not want to interfere with the judicial process.
However she said in a statement: ‘Richard maintains his innocence, has cooperated fully with the investigation, and was quickly released by police without any restriction on his travel and without being required to post bail.
Richard Liu’s lawyer Jill Brisbois (pictured) said that her client maintains his innocence
‘We believe his innocence will be apparent once a determination has been made and all evidence is disclosed to the public’.
Liu is known in Chinese as Liu Qiangdong. He is worth $7.5 billion.
News of Liu’s arrest more than two months ago made headlines across the world and in China, where he is an internet entrepreneur and one of the country’s wealthiest men.
In 2017, the Carlson School launched its four-year doctoral program for Chinese executives in collaboration with Tsinghua University in Beijing.
It is described by the University of Minnesota as a professional degree program for high-level executives in China and is ‘tailored for top executives in Chinese business’.
Students pay an average of $75,000 to the Carlson School to attend the four-year program.