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The billionaire founder of Chinese tech giant JD.com is locked in a bitter lawsuit over a rape allegation by a college student: Here's everything we know about the case (JD)

Mingzhou Events/Weibo via YouTube; Bobby Yip/Reuters

  • Richard Liu, the billionaire founder of China's JD.com and one of the richest men in China, is facing a rape accusation in a civil court from a University of Minnesota college student.
  • He denies the allegations.
  • Liu was arrested last summer but was released shortly after. Minneapolis prosecutors also decided not to launch criminal charges against Liu last December, citing insufficient evidence.
  • But in April, the student Liu Jingyao filed a civil lawsuit against the tech CEO detailing the alleged rape, and a mysterious social media account leaked videos from the night of the alleged incident.
  • JD.com's stock has reacted swiftly to each twist and turn of the saga.
  • Here's everything we know about the allegation and lawsuit.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Richard Liu, the billionaire founder and CEO of JD.com, the Chinese e-commerce giant, faces a rape accusation in civil court from a college student in Minneapolis. The case has roiled his company's share price, called into question his squeaky-clean reputation, and led him to miss numerous high profile gatherings of China's business elite.

Liu is accused of assaulting Liu Jingyao, then a 21-year-old undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, while he was attending a business program there last summer.

He was arrested on the night of the alleged incident, but was released the next day and permitted to fly home. State prosecutors also dropped charges against him, citing insufficient evidence, last December. As far as the criminal justice system is concerned, Liu is free to go about his business as before.

Representatives of Liu and JD.com have repeatedly denied the sexual allegations, and vowed to fight them.

But the saga didn't end there. Last month, Liu Jingyao filed a civil lawsuit against the tech CEO, accusing him of plying her with so much alcohol that she couldn't walk properly, assaulting her in a company limousine, and then raping her in her apartment.

A week later, a mysterious Weibo account uploaded surveillance footage of the two drinking at dinner and going home together. Both sides say the clips vindicate their position.

Scroll down for a full timeline of the case.

This is Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu. The 46-year-old is the founder and CEO of JD.com, the biggest e-commerce company in China. As of May 2019, he has a net worth of $6.2 billion and is the 30th-richest person in China.REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

He was born in 1973 to a poor family in Suqian, Jiangsu, where his family often ate sweet potatoes and corn as dinner because they couldn't afford meat, The New York Times reported.

He first established the company as a small electronics stall in Beijing in 1998, but closed it six years later to focus on online retailing.

The company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange in May 2014.

He is the 272nd-richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Source: Forbes, JD.com



Over the years he gained a reputation as a workaholic and a family man. He's married to Zhang Zetian, the 25-year-old youngest female billionaire in China, with whom he has one daughter.Lintao Zhang/Getty; Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

He has said that he often works 16-hour days because he doesn't like relaxing too much, Reuters reported. Once a year, he also wears a JD.com messengers' uniform to deliver packages himself.

"For my parents I want to be a good son, for my wife a good husband, and for my daughter I want to be a good father," he said this January, according to Reuters.

"I hope that one day when I retire that my workers will all be able to say: 'He was a good guy,'" he added.

Read more: The fabulous life of Zhang Zetian, the youngest female billionaire in China



In August 2018, he was arrested in Minneapolis following a rape accusation. He was released the next day and he returned home to China shortly after.Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via AP

He had been in town at the time to attend a business administration course at the University of Minnesota, a program attended by many foreign CEOs.

JD.com's stock dropped 4% after the arrest and allegation were made public. Liu's standing in China's rich list also plummeted from 16 to 30.

Read more: Investors betting against JD.com made $153 million after the company's CEO was accused of sexual misconduct

Chinese social media users also "obsessed" over the case, with many of them learning about the American legal system — like what mug shots are — to follow along with the case, The New York Times reported.



That didn't end the media scrutiny of the incident. In September 2018, Reuters reported that the accuser sent WeChat messages to her friends after the alleged incident saying that the CEO pressured her into drinking and forced her into sex.Florence Lo/Illustration/Reuters

According to Reuters, she described the alleged forced drinking as "a trap." She also discussed Liu's powerful position in China, saying: "You underestimate his power."

Though the report didn't name the accuser, it identified her as a student from China attending the University of Minnesota.

Jill Brisbois, Liu's lawyer in Minneapolis, told Reuters that the "allegations are inconsistent with evidence that we hope will be disclosed to the public once the case is closed."

Source: Reuters



Two months later, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published a long account of the night, including explicit details of the alleged rape. The newspaper also identified the accuser as a 21-year-old college student, but did not name her. (Warning: Graphic details below.)Damir Sagolj/Reuters

Here's what the Star Tribune said:

"Inside the apartment, she told police, he pulled off her sweater over her protests. She said that Liu told her she could be just like Wendi Deng, the Chinese-born ex-wife of Australian media executive Rupert Murdoch.

"'I told him "no" several times,' she told police. She also told police that he tried to pull off her skirt and bra, held her arms and tried to throw her onto her bed.

"'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.'"

Brisbois, the tech CEO's lawyer, told Business Insider that her client "maintains his innocence" and called the Star Tribune's story "one-sided."

Read more: A Chinese tech billionaire has been accused of plying a student with drink and then forcing himself on her during a trip to the US



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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