A U.S. District Court sentenced a Chinese national to nine months in prison, three years of supervised release, and deportation afterward for cyberstalking and threatening a fellow student in Boston. He will self-surrender to a designated jail on June 7. Wu Xiaolei was found guilty on both counts three months ago.
The sentence is less than the prosecutors’ recommendation—33 months of imprisonment and three years of supervised release, but more than what the defendant’s attorney requested—release followed by an immediate self-deportation.
After the deportation, Mr. Wu will not be allowed back to the United States unless he gets special permission from the Secretary of Homeland Security, the judge ruled.
Judge Denise Casper in the U.S. District of Massachusetts said Mr. Wu’s crimes, although committed in a limited period of two days, aimed at silencing the pro-democracy voice of the victim using the alias Zoey. Mr. Wu also showed a pattern of harassment and advised others to harass Zoey, she said.
The Judge said she also considered Mr. Wu’s story and the broader impact of the sentence in protecting more Chinese students and citizens from harm on U.S. soil.
During the sentencing hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors presented the same argument they wrote in their memo: “The defendant’s crimes are serious. He weaponized the authoritarian nature of the PRC government in order to harass and threaten Ms. Zoey.” PRC is the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
Zoey’s father in China was repeatedly visited by Chinese authorities, just as Zoey feared after Mr. Wu harassed her, prosecutors wrote. In their view, although Mr. Wu’s action might not have taken his specific actions under the direction of the Chinese authorities, “he nevertheless enlisted himself as part of the PRC’s network of censorship and repression,” a network that reaches into the United States to intimidate those with family members in China.
Prosecutors said they made the sentencing recommendation based on “the defendant’s actions against Miss Zoey, his apparent lack of remorse, and a need for strong general deterrence.”
On the day he was found guilty, Mr. Wu didn’t seem deterred by the ruling; he gave reporters a middle finger as he left the courthouse.
The defendant’s attorney Michael Tumposky argued that Mr. Wu should not be punished because he didn’t plead guilty.
Mr. Tumposky said Mr. Wu’s story is about a young man passionate about jazz who made it to his dream school. However, his dream was shattered in two days due to his “immature” behavior. The lawyer framed the issue as a cultural collision between Mr. Wu’s “own highly sheltered upbringing in communist China and the democratic norms of the United States.”
Mr. Wu read a statement in court and apologized repeatedly. “There’s not a day I didn’t feel regret,” he said. “I have to take responsibility and learn from what I have done. And the first step is to say ‘sorry.’”
Mr. Tumposky and Mr. Wu declined to comment to The Epoch Times as they left the courthouse.
A spokesperson of the Berklee College of Music, where Mr. Wu used to study, told The Epoch Times that she had no comment.
Berklee suspended Mr. Wu after his arrest in December 2022. He has surrendered his Chinese passport to the court. He is still on a student visa.
Cyberstalking and Threatening
On Oct. 22, 20222, student activist Zoey, who goes by the alias for fear of reprisal, posted a piece of paper on a window near the Berklee College of Music campus that read, “Stand with Chinese People,” “We Want Freedom,” and “We Want Democracy.”
Zoey did that to support those in China and posted a picture of her flyer to her social media account.
Zoey’s nightmare began after Mr. Wu saw her social media post. He threatened Zoey on a Chinese social media app WeChat and through Instagram and email.
According to the charging document, he said in a WeChat group with more than 300 members, “I already called the tipoff line in the country; the public security agency will go greet your family.”
“Post more, I will chop your [expletive] hands off,” he added.
Prosecutors said Mr. Wu posted her email and home addresses online. At a court hearing on Jan. 23, Zoey said she thought Mr. Wu made her information public to encourage others to beat her up.
“I remain terrified until this day,” she said.
From The Epoch Times
