Details emerge in JD.com CEO Richard Liu rape allegations as US prosecutors weigh conflicting accounts

On the night of August 30, a 21-year-old University of Minnesota student said she was in a chauffeured black car, trying to keep billionaire JD.com chief executive Richard Liu Qiangdong from pulling off her clothes.

“I just begged him, ‘Don’t do that. You have a wife and you have kids,’” the Chinese woman told police in a recorded interview days after that was reviewed by Reuters. “He did not listen to me.”

At around 3am, Minneapolis police responded to an “assault in progress” involving Liu at the woman’s luxury apartment, a police report showed, after a friend alerted authorities. Officers investigated and concluded that no crime had occurred. Precisely what the woman and Liu told police has not been made public, but Reuters previously reported that she was afraid that Liu would retaliate against her if she pressed charges.

Less than 24 hours later, when police were summoned again with the help of a university administrator, the woman was unequivocal: She said she had been raped by Liu. The Chinese executive was arrested that night.

Liu, who has maintained his innocence through representatives, was jailed for about 17 hours before being released. Hours later, he flew to China, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

Local prosecutors are weighing evidence that would move the case beyond a “he said, she said” stalemate. Among the issues being considered by the Hennepin County Attorney’s office: the divergent accounts of what happened that night, the initial determination by police that there was no crime, and the woman’s early hesitance to press charges against Liu, Reuters has learned.