Join me to hear the story of cyberstalking pro China student Xiaolei Wu, an F-1 visa student at Berklee College of Music. This is eCrimeBytes.com Season 3, Episode 6: Cyberstalking For China – Act 2: Wu’s Legal Troubles.
To get the background, act 1 can be found here:
Sources:
- https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/berklee-college-music-student-convicted-stalking-threatening-individual-promoting
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66712273/united-states-v-wu/
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66713307/united-states-v-wu/
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66638166/united-states-v-xiaolei-wu/
- https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66635612/united-states-v-xiaolei-wu-bfont-colorreddo-not-docket-in-this/
- https://www.instagram.com/aldimeowu
- https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-citizen-appears-in-us-court-for-hearing-on-cyberstalking-allegations-/7201176.html (Photo)
- https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3249815/music-student-china-convicted-harassing-person-over-democracy-leaflet (Photo)
- https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/15/asia/berklee-college-chinese-student-arrested-intl-hnk/index.html (Photo)
Transcript:
00:00:10:00 – 00:00:28:27
Keith
What’s up, you crazy bastards. Welcome to another week of eCrimeBytes. This is where I research the court documentation and roast the criminals so you don’t have to. All right, so this week I’m bringing you season three. This is episode six Cyberstalking for China. And
00:00:28:27 – 00:00:37:42
Keith
I brought you this individual named Mr. Wu, spelled w u. He goes to the Berklee College of Music up in Boston, Massachusetts.
00:00:37:42 – 00:00:41:21
Keith
I say up because I’m South. Okay. So that’s why I say up
00:00:41:21 – 00:01:08:40
Keith
there. So in Boston, he’s doing his usual school duties and apparently he’s on Instagram and he sees that somebody else in the college posted a pro-democracy poster. And I say poster loosely here is kind of handwritten with black marker on a white sheet of just, I would say, printer paper and taped to a window.
00:01:08:45 – 00:01:25:03
Keith
You would probably not notice it if you walked by it and it was in the store window. Not to say it’s not important, victim. I, i it is definitely important. But for the scheme of things, Mr. Wu could have just walked by and not seen it, is what I’m saying
00:01:25:03 – 00:01:49:41
Keith
here. Like, he didn’t have to spend any time on this, but he spent a ton of time on it because he saw it on an Instagram and apparently probably in real life and he started posting threats at that person in the public WeChat social chat app that is commonly used in China that had over 300 people from China that were going to the Berklee College
00:01:49:41 – 00:02:08:23
Keith
of Music, sort of posting things about, you know, I’m going to cut your hands off Bastard and all this other stuff, and just got really, really personal, okay? And I’m not going to I’m not even going to bring in what he said. Okay. Listen, if you want to know what he said, you got to back up and watch act number one.
00:02:08:23 – 00:02:27:42
Keith
And I’m going to put a link here that I usually put on YouTube all the time so you can back up and watch the previous act. But if you’re going to plow on, I’m going to continue on with my synopsis here. So Wu is threatening her on WeChat and I don’t know, maybe at some point she’s like, maybe he just had a bad day.
00:02:27:47 – 00:02:59:44
Keith
No, threatens again, threatens again. And then he threatens over Instagram and then he threatens over email directly to her, all these communications being interstate communications so the federal government can get involved at this point. And they do, because there are two important things that happened prior. There’s this one point where Berklee does an investigation and Wu’s on the record with Yeah, yeah, I cyber stalked this woman, hated her because she didn’t like China.
00:02:59:49 – 00:03:36:14
Keith
That was his reasoning. So he’s on the record there. And then the victim went to court, took him to court for a temporary restraining order, and he went to court on the record, said yep, yep. Threatened her, hated her hated her. She like she really hated China. So therefore I hated her. And in the scheme basically implied to the victim that not only is he threatening her and saying he’s going to chop off her hands and all this other stuff, he reported her family and friends to the Chinese government saying they are anti-Chinese while they’re in China.
00:03:36:16 – 00:04:00:51
Keith
So I can imagine not a good scenario for her family and friends. Okay. And if you’ve happened to notice, I’ve had this picture of him on the screen this whole up until this point, it looks like he’s in the interview room and he is because he’s arrested December of 2022 when a complaint is filed on cyberstalking by the federal government.
00:04:00:51 – 00:04:11:16
Keith
So the no shit federal government stepped in and said, yeah, no more cyber stalking. We’re now going to arrest you. And here he is having an
00:04:11:16 – 00:04:45:58
Keith
interview. And I can only imagine if you caught act one. I can only imagine he talked really verbose at both of those things, you know, with the investigation, with Berklee College and with on the court record that I can only imagine when he’s sitting with a police officer, he’s probably giving them everything else because he did he did give them his password to his phone so the police officers could just easily pull all the stuff off his phone and see the evidence for themselves too.
00:04:46:03 – 00:05:06:17
Keith
So, you know, he talks to them and gives them the same story. They ask him questions like, hey, did you do this? And he’s like, Fuck, yeah, I did this. Fuck yeah, I did this. She hated she hated China. So I had to do something right. I’m sure it wasn’t exactly like that, but it was something along those lines, I imagine.
00:05:06:21 – 00:05:24:22
Keith
And so, you know, the government got the password, went back to all the evidence on the phone and went, okay, we can actually charge him with more here. Came back with an indictment. They had two counts. So it had the original stalking that I told you about. But the second one was a count of interstate transmission of a threatening communication.
00:05:24:26 – 00:05:54:09
Keith
And that basically means that email that went through, you know, from Boston, Massachusetts, over to California and back to Boston, Massachusetts, that was the interstate transmission. So a new count, which listen, legal wise, I don’t I do because I’m the podcaster. But when I used to not be a podcaster, I didn’t really care about the law name so much because it’s usually how many counts that are on there and the severity of the accounts.
00:05:54:13 – 00:06:21:26
Keith
So cyberstalking, stalking, pretty severe, and that’s a count. And then the second one is interstate transmission of of threatening communication, also very severe. And that makes it two counts that he has to worry about. So meaning more prison time that he’s going to be looking at if he’s convicted of these things. So then then when he’s arrested, Wu’s probably like, fuck…
00:06:21:31 – 00:06:53:12
Keith
So that’s how this works. Okay. So I said I did this stuff then you arrested me. I see. It works different in China. Really. I need to file a motion to suppress all that shit that I said because I didn’t know you could do that. That’s completely different than how it works in China. Now, listeners, this is why I gave you all that background in Act One about how it works in China is because now he’s arguing it works differently in the U.S. and you should give me leniency because I should know this or I should not know this.
00:06:53:17 – 00:07:21:02
Keith
So he wants to suppress all those statements that he made for many reasons, many reasons. He said, I didn’t know enough English. I misunderstood many things on that temporary restraining order, court appearance. And when interviewed by the FBI, he said, I may not even understood the Miranda warning. Listeners, again, I know it seems like tangents, but this is why I’m explaining Miranda warnings to you.
00:07:21:07 – 00:07:42:12
Keith
He is saying I’m Chinese. I didn’t even understand the Miranda warnings. So all that stuff afterwards, you just got to let that go, right? And that’s all all me saying that I was guilty, got to let all that shit go. And then he goes on to say, You got to look at my life in China. Okay? It’s a little different than it is here in the U.S..
00:07:42:12 – 00:08:03:08
Keith
All right. If I were interviewed in China by the authorities, I don’t really have the right to refuse to answer questions. I really should have refused to answer your questions. And I know I understand that. I understand that now. I understand that now. That’s why I’m doing the motion to suppress. Trust me, I understand that now. So please just do that motion to suppress.
00:08:03:08 – 00:08:24:26
Keith
Okay. That’s basically his argument here. And then he goes on to say, The Chinese criminal justice system, it relies heavily on confession. So it really I thought I had to talk in this case. I really did. I thought I had to talk. I didn’t know I didn’t have to talk. I really should have shut up. So please suppress all that stuff when I should have shut up.
00:08:24:31 – 00:08:50:51
Keith
And then they just go on and they said, you know, yes, in theory you could assert a right to silence in court. But I guess sounds like in practice, according to this other doctor and I say doctor loosely here, I say it loosely in my doctor sense. it’s not a medical doctor, it’s the Keith Jones doctor sense. So that’s Dr. Belkin, which is an expert witness on behalf of the defense.
00:08:50:51 – 00:09:18:25
Keith
So take this for what it’s worth, said that he was not aware of a defendant, a searching. I’m sorry, asserting such a right in court. Okay. So what he’s saying is he’s never heard of anybody in China ever asserting this right. So take that for what it’s worth. That’s their argument. With all that Wu says, all my interviews, all that phone data that I gave you because I gave him my passwords.
00:09:18:25 – 00:09:32:53
Keith
You got to throw all that shit out. Yeah, throw it out. I didn’t know. I did not know that’s how the US system worked. Okay. The government, they came back and they said, Wait a minute, we get an argument here. He doesn’t get to just argue and you get to walk away.
00:09:32:53 – 00:09:48:09
Keith
We say bullshit, okay? Because he studied English in China that just one year, not just two years, he studied four years of English before even coming to the U.S. So you cannot believe him when he says he did not know English.
00:09:48:09 – 00:10:15:47
Keith
Okay. He definitely knew English. He’s he’s not 100% a mandarin speaker at this point. He’s been speaking in English throughout. And even then he was given an interpreter and there’s opportunities of interpreter. And there was one point he had an interpreter and he was speaking better and faster than the interpreter where he dismissed the interpreter. So what what can we do at that point?
00:10:15:47 – 00:10:45:18
Keith
Right. It was Wu’s idea to dismiss the interpreter. This is what the government’s arguing. Arguing. And then the government says, Listen, I know he says he didn’t understand Miranda rights. Which fucking bullshit on that. Right? But listen, we still gave him it written in English and written in simplified Chinese, so there should be no reason why he did not understand his rights when he signed off on that.
00:10:45:18 – 00:10:57:52
Keith
Okay. And then the government says, Listen, you don’t have to believe us. Here’s a court record or an interview, a recorded interview of one of our agents talking to him.
00:10:57:52 – 00:11:04:10
Keith
Here’s an example of his English. And I had to read this to you just to give you a flavor, because when I read this, I was like, All right, the guy.
00:11:04:15 – 00:11:26:20
Keith
Yeah, he definitely understood some English. So the agent says, Okay, where did you see this poster originally? Wu says, I think it’s in 150 Massachusetts Avenue. The agent says, okay, Wu says, A lot of a lot of things is on all the campus. The agent says, okay, so you saw this poster and what was your reaction to this
00:11:26:20 – 00:11:27:12
Keith
poster?
00:11:27:17 – 00:11:43:20
Keith
Wu says, I feel angry of that. You are from China and you post this. This is a lot of political scholar things in China. What she did, she posted the poster is forbidden in China, but right now in here is okay.
00:11:43:20 – 00:11:50:59
Keith
The agent says yes. And Wu says and most of them, I think, the average student from China mainland got to hate her, what she did.
00:11:51:04 – 00:11:58:30
Keith
And the agent says, okay, so you’re angry that she posted criticism of. And Wu says, Yeah, pretty angry with that.
00:11:58:30 – 00:12:13:16
Keith
I imagine he was a little more angry than I read it, you know. Yeah, pretty angry with that. And then the agent says, are you yourself a member of the Chinese government or like the Chinese Communist Party, And it upsets you that you criticize it.
00:12:13:21 – 00:12:18:13
Keith
And Wu says, No, I’m not like the member of the CCP or something. I just love my
00:12:18:13 – 00:12:38:21
Keith
country. So you can see he’s conversing with the agent, He’s having some broken English, but you can tell that he’s not stopping the agent saying, I don’t understand what you mean. He’s continuing the conversation, giving him information and kind of even correcting himself if it if it’s not clear.
00:12:38:26 – 00:13:01:53
Keith
Okay. So then the court goes back and they said, ha, ok we got argument from one side, got the argument from the other side. We’re going to deny this motion to suppress because this is kind of bullshit, he knew he was waiving his rights to talk to these agents and giving over his passcode. So all that evidence stays in.
00:13:01:59 – 00:13:19:40
Keith
And you can imagine Wu has the moment of the picture that I put on the screen for you right now, which is kind of like, shit. Right. That was probably is one good play here because he had so many statements everywhere of his guilt where he was probably like, get the evidence thrown out. That was my only one good shot.
00:13:19:40 – 00:13:20:36
Keith
The judge said, No.
00:13:20:36 – 00:13:43:10
Keith
So what do I do now? But on January 23rd through January 25th of 2024, Wu says, Fuck it, let’s try and see what a trial does. And he goes to trial. It’s a three day trial. And guess what happens? The jury comes back and they
00:13:43:10 – 00:13:48:51
Keith
slide over a form to the judge. Judge reads it and says, Yeah yeah, I can see that too.
00:13:48:51 – 00:14:06:24
Keith
Two guilty on both counts. Guilty for stalking and guilty for threatening over interstate communications, which is kind of a no brainer. Right? Because we saw the communications. We know it’s interstate because it goes over email, which is pretty much any email anywhere, any any
00:14:06:24 – 00:14:16:33
Keith
day. And if you just pause in that for a moment, Wu admitted it to the school and then he admitted it in court.
00:14:16:37 – 00:14:37:45
Keith
So, I mean, what what other verdict could there have been in this case really? So this is where we stop. This is where we’re done with the case. And I know, I know. I really want to know what the sentencing is. All right. Right. It’s like we’re at that point where he’s actually going to be punished and you want to know what is going to be at the end of the day.
00:14:37:50 – 00:14:55:48
Keith
We don’t know what it is. We don’t know yet. The court is still deciding what his punishment is going to be. So when we get that update, I’m going to come back and give it to you. I will tell you what it could be. Okay. The charge of cyberstalking alone carries up to five years in prison. So that’s pretty hefty.
00:14:55:48 – 00:15:21:16
Keith
Just, you know, alone. Five years is a lot for for sending a few emails. I don’t want to minimize it, but some of these other cases, there were people that could have been hurt physically because there were hitmen hired. So five years and that’s kind of a lot for an email that was just verbally threatening. The charge of interstate transmissions of a threatening communication.
00:15:21:16 – 00:15:45:09
Keith
That’s another five years. So yeah, that together, the whole thing would have been about ten years max. Okay. If you add up the the the monetary penalties, that could be up to a half a million dollars, meaning there’s a quarter million dollars apiece on each of those counts. So end of the day, he could be facing ten years in total and a half a million dollars in fines.
00:15:45:14 – 00:16:09:10
Keith
Now we wait. I seriously, seriously doubt it’s going to be that much. Okay. I recommend that you check back when I see when I finally see an update on his sentencing will be, I’ll I’ll do an update like I’ve done in other cases. Personally, if I had to guess if I had a bet on it, if I had to put money on it, I would say it’s probably one less or year in prison.
00:16:09:15 – 00:16:33:16
Keith
Could possibly, possibly even be probation. And I’m going on record now before sentencing. I could be totally off. I don’t know. I just feel like I didn’t see any other criminal background other than the stalking where the judge is probably going to go, okay, He’ll probably serve something little and then he’ll finish maybe his studies and go overseas and not be anybody’s worry at this point.
00:16:33:16 – 00:16:53:11
Keith
I just that’s that’s how I see it. I don’t see them giving him a multi-year or sentence up to the max of ten. That just seems utterly insane, at least for this case, in my opinion. And okay, so that was one of my last final thoughts in this case. Another final thought was his gambled didn’t pay off for him. Right?
00:16:53:24 – 00:17:07:47
Keith
You do hear people go, I’m going to gamble on a trial. And it is a gamble because a jury can come back with the exact opposite of what you want. They could have a bad day. Somebody could be having a headache and say, I want to fucking get out of here and do that.
00:17:07:47 – 00:17:23:28
Keith
So you really don’t know what a jury is going to come back with. And in this case, it came back with the exact opposite of what Wu wanted. He had two counts, right? I mean, it was kind of like the the games for the Super Bowl. All I wanted was the Detroit Lions to win and the Baltimore Ravens to win.
00:17:23:28 – 00:17:45:18
Keith
And they both lost. And in this case, Wu lost both of his counts, too. So. All right. I don’t know why he chose to go for it. Maybe maybe it was his only choice. Maybe it was like, what am I going to do, plead guilty to two counts or go to trial? And he went to trial and he found guilty on two counts.
00:17:45:18 – 00:18:08:48
Keith
So he didn’t really have much to lose. Now, the most important final thought here is just maybe a precautionary tale. I don’t know how you want to look at this, but giving statements in a civil case or in an investigation of any sort can definitely be used against you in a criminal trial. So the temporary restraining order and the court statements were used against him.
00:18:08:53 – 00:18:41:49
Keith
The Berklee school investigation used against him. I saw it in the court records. He tried to argue against having it used against him. And the court said, nope, nope, we’re using it against you. And I think that’s what factored in to him being guilty, at the end of the day, of the two counts. Okay. And so with that, I just want to remind you, please, like subscribe, thumbs up, follow whatever it is on your application.
00:18:41:49 – 00:18:58:48
Keith
Just please do it. I try not to ask for money. Don’t send me money. Don’t go buy things. Just those things. They help spread this video to other people. It just spreads the viewership and it helps me out immensely and I appreciate it so much. So if there’s anything you can do, please just do that. Just do that for me.
00:18:58:53 – 00:19:00:07
Keith
And with that, out of the way,
00:19:00:07 – 00:19:24:40
Keith
let me preview next week. Next week I have season three episode seven, which is trick but malware Author Vladimir Dunaev. Okay. And that’s spelled D U N A E V. All right. This is going to be interesting case. This is one of those things that popped up on my radar and I said, this is a big enough case.
00:19:24:40 – 00:19:32:16
Keith
I think we should put some time into this and maybe spend a little more on the technical side of
00:19:32:16 – 00:19:47:56
Keith
malware, because a lot of these cases I’ve been bringing you have been cyberstalking or, you know, maybe theft of Bitcoin and it hasn’t been real, hasn’t been a lot of technical tools behind the scene used in the crime other than just generic things that everybody uses.
00:19:48:00 – 00:20:11:51
Keith
So we’re going to talk about malware, we’re going to talk about what malware can do, why it’s bad, and the fact that people write it behind the scenes. Some people are paid to write them. And, you know, some people make money off of like ransomware malware where they infect your computer and lock up all your files and hope that you’ll pay them some huge amount of money to get access to your files back.
00:20:11:51 – 00:20:22:26
Keith
That’s all the same thing. So we’re going to talk about those technical things and then just wrap it up in a true crime story like I always do. So I hope to see you back then. All right. Thanks. Bye.
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