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JD.com describes lawsuit as ‘meritless’ after student in Minnesota accuses Richard Liu of rape

  • The civil suit, which also names JD.com as a defendant, seeks more than US$50,000 in damages
  • A 21-year-old said the billionaire plied her with alcohol at a business networking dinner with other wealthy Chinese executives on August 30

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JD.com founder Richard Liu attends a business forum in Hong Kong in 2017. Photo: Reuters

JD.com said it would defend itself vigorously after a University of Minnesota student accused Richard Liu, the billionaire founder and CEO of China’s second biggest e-commerce company, of rape in a lawsuit filed in Minneapolis on Tuesday, four months after prosecutors declined to pursue a criminal case.

The lawsuit, which JD’s lawyers described as meritless, also names JD.com as a defendant and seeks more than US$50,000 in damages. The student, Liu Jingyao, is identified in the complaint as a University of Minnesota undergraduate.

Liu Jingyao, 21, said Richard Liu forcibly assaulted her in her apartment after plying her with alcohol at a business networking dinner with other wealthy Chinese executives on August 30, according to the complaint filed on Tuesday in Hennepin County court in Minnesota.

Liu said she was “overpowered” into a private limousine hired by JD.com for the time its CEO was taking courses at the university, and was taken to her apartment by Liu and a female assistant named Alice Zhang.

The complaint said Richard Liu asked Zhang to return to the limo while he escorted Liu Jingyao to her apartment, where she pleaded with him to leave. “Instead, Defendant Liu ... told the Plaintiff ‘you can be a woman just like Wendi Deng’,” according to the document, referring to the former wife of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

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