Richard Liu, the billionaire chief executive of JD.com Inc, flew from China to Minneapolis in late August for a doctor of business administration program at the University of Minnesota. The trip, which began on Aug. 25, 2018, ended with a rape allegation and a criminal investigation.
In a Reuters timeline published on November 22, 2018, the sequence of events around the alleged assault and its immediate aftermath was laid out in detail. The account centered on what happened between Aug. 25 and Sept. 20, including police contact, Liu’s arrest, and JD.com’s public response.
Key events in the case ¶
On Aug. 25, Liu arrived in Minneapolis for the program. Five days later, on Aug. 30, he hosted a dinner attended by a 21-year-old woman.
Police were called around 3 a.m. on Aug. 31 after a report of an “assault in progress” involving Liu. Officers later decided that no crime had occurred at that point.
Later that day, around noon, Liu’s personal assistant, Vivian Yang, contacted the woman and suggested that she speak with another billionaire student, Li Hua, according to WeChat messages exchanged between the woman and Yang, as well as a recording of the woman’s interview with police.
At about 9 p.m. on Aug. 31, the woman called police with help from a university administrator. Liu was arrested shortly afterward on suspicion of rape.
He was released from jail around 4 p.m. on Sept. 1.
On Sept. 2, a JD.com spokesperson posted on Weibo that Liu had faced “false accusations” and that “no inappropriate behavior was found” after a police investigation.
Minneapolis police turned over the findings of their initial investigation to prosecutors on Sept. 20.
What the record shows ¶
The Reuters report did not resolve the underlying allegation. Instead, it documented the timeline from Liu’s arrival in the United States through the early police and company responses that followed the complaint.
