Woman says Chinese billionaire forced her to have sex
Alleged rape victim messaged friends that she had begged JD.com founder to stop but he ignored her
With the Chinese billionaire Richard Liu at her Minneapolis area apartment, a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student sent a WeChat message to a friend in the middle of the night. She alleged that Mr Liu had forced her to have sex with him.
"I was not willing," she wrote around 2am on Aug 31.
"Tomorrow I will think of a way to escape," she wrote, begging her friend not to call police.
"He will suppress it," she alleged, referring to Mr Liu.
One of the woman's lawyers, Mr Wil Florin, verified that the text messages came from her.
Mr Liu, 45, the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, was arrested later that day on suspicion of rape, according to a police report.
He was released without being charged and has denied any wrongdoing through a lawyer. He has since returned to China and has pledged to cooperate with Minneapolis police.
The woman's WeChat messages to two friends and media interviews with half a dozen people with knowledge of the events that unfolded over a two-day period provide new information about the interaction between Mr Liu and the woman, a student from China attending the university.
Mr Liu was in Minneapolis to attend a business doctoral programme run jointly by the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and China's Tsinghua University.
He threw a dinner party on Aug 30 for two dozen people at a Japanese restaurant where wine, sake and beer flowed freely, according to restaurant staff and closed-circuit video footage reviewed by Reuters.
Mr Liu ordered sashimi by pointing his finger at the first item on the menu and sweeping it all the way down to indicate he wanted everything, one employee said.
Later, the woman told a second friend in one of the messages that she felt pressured to drink that evening.
"It was a trap," she wrote, later adding that she was "really drunk".
The party ended around 9.30pm. Mr Liu and the woman then headed to a house in Minneapolis, according to one person familiar with the matter.
But they did not go in. Mr Liu and the student were seen outside the house before he pulled her into his car, a person with knowledge of the incident said.
In the WeChat message to one friend sent hours later, the student alleged that Mr Liu "started to touch me in the car".
"Then I begged him not to… but he did not listen," she alleged. They ended up back at her apartment, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.
According to the police report, the alleged rape occurred around 1am.
The woman subsequently reached a fellow undergrad who notified the police, according to two sources and her WeChat messages.
Police went to her apartment early that morning while Mr Liu was there but made no arrest, another source familiar with the situation said. The source said the woman declined to press charges in Mr Liu's presence.
The student went to a hospital to have a sexual assault forensic test.
Police arrived at a University of Minnesota office shortly after an emergency call around 9pm that night. The student was present and accused Mr Liu of rape, the source said.
Mr Liu went to the university around 11pm, according to the person familiar with the matter. As an officer handcuffed him, Mr Liu showed no emotion. He was released about 17 hours later. - REUTERS
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