A Chinese businesswoman convicted of bluffing her way into President Donald Trump’s private Palm Beach club in a gray evening gown on a spring afternoon will learn Friday how long she’s going to prison.
Yujing Zhang, arrested for trespassing March 30, was found guilty by a federal jury in September of entering a restricted area at Mar-a-Lago and lying to Secret Service agents about it.
Federal prosecutors would like to send the 33-year-old woman to prison for 1.5 years, according to newly filed court papers. Zhang has already been behind bars for about eight months, so if a judge goes along with that proposal she could face another 10 months in prison at her sentencing Friday in Fort Lauderdale federal court.
Zhang, who fired her federal public defenders before trial, is representing herself. It is likely Zhang, who is still receiving advice behind-the-scenes from the public defender’s office, will ask U.S. District Judge Roy Altman to sentence her to the time she has already been held in detention in a Broward County lockup. After all, she can argue, the federal sentencing guidelines for her convictions on trespassing and lying to federal agents call for a prison term of zero to six months.
But prosecutors argue Zhang should get a longer sentence because she has lied over and over again — not just to federal agents but also to a magistrate judge who detained her before trial.
‘Up to something nefarious’
When Magistrate Judge William Matthewman asked Zhang about her finances during a detention hearing in April, Zhang said under oath that she only had about $5,000 in her Wells Fargo account. But she “neglected to tell” the judge that she wired about $40,000 into an Interactive Brokers account during the last two years, according to prosecutors Rolando Garcia and Michael Sherwin. She also “neglected to tell” the judge that she had about $8,000 in U.S. and Chinese currency in her room at the Colony Hotel in Palm Beach, where she was staying while visiting Mar-a-Lago.
When her detention hearing was over, Matthewman found she was a flight risk but also said she was “up to something nefarious” at Trump’s club, which has been a magnet for Chinese, Russian and other foreign business people seeking to meet with the president.
If she is not sentenced for more than six months, prosecutors argued, “Zhang’s obstructive conduct in lying to the magistrate judge essentially goes unpunished.”
“Not only did Zhang lie to (the magistrate judge) but she also lied to practically everyone she encountered in the United States,” prosecutors wrote in their motion to boost her prison sentence.
Prosecutors argue that Zhang deserves up to 1.5 years in prison for another reason: In a similar case, Chinese exchange student Zhao Qianli, 20, was sentenced to one year in prison after he pleaded guilty in February to one count of photographing defense installations at the Naval Air Station in Key West.
In September, Zhang’s fate was sealed when a 12-person federal jury in Fort Lauderdale found her guilty of trespassing at Mar-a-Lago and lying to federal agents about why she was at Trump’s club, capping a bizarre trial in which the enigmatic defendant’s true purpose in coming to the resort was never answered.
‘I did nothing wrong’
The jury reached verdicts after a two-day trial in which federal prosecutors accused Zhang of being so determined to enter the posh club to meet Trump that she lied to Secret Service agents and Mar-a-Lago staff, telling them she wanted to attend a gala event she knew had been canceled before she left China. The text messages on her iPhone 7 showed that Zhang not only had learned the Mar-a-Lago event on the evening of March 30 was off but also that she had asked the trip organizer for a refund, according to trial evidence.
Zhang, who did not put on a defense, declared her innocence during closing arguments, saying she had a contract to attend a United Nations friendship event between the United States and China at the Mar-a-Lago club. “I do think I did nothing wrong,” said Zhang, speaking in English. “I did no lying.”
Zhang, who says she is a successful businesswoman from Shanghai, has also been under scrutiny from a federal counterintelligence investigation, although she has not been charged with spying. The secret “national security” investigation — reflected in government evidence that was filed under seal in Zhang’s trespassing case — never came up at trial. That probe, delving into possible Chinese espionage at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere in South Florida, continues though the trespassing trial is finished and Zhang’s sentencing is set.
Bluffed her way in
Trial evidence showed that Zhang bluffed her way past two security checkpoints before she was allowed to enter Mar-a-Lago after 12 p.m. on March 30. Initially, she told Secret Service agents and club staff that she was going to the pool. Her last name — one of the most common in China — happened to match that of a member, so they let her in. That likely led jurors to debate whether she had in fact been allowed on the premises and had therefore not trespassed.
Credit: AL DRAGO
Credit: AL DRAGO
But when Zhang walked into Mar-a-Lago’s ornate lobby in a long, gray evening dress while shooting video with her cellphone, a sharp-eyed receptionist thought she looked suspicious. Zhang breezed past the receptionist, Ariela Grumaz, into a lounge area.
“As soon as she entered the lobby, you could see she was fascinated by the decorations, and that’s when I realized she had never been here before,” Grumaz testified.
Receptionist’s key testimony
Federal prosecutors based their case on evidence that Zhang knew she had no reason to enter the president’s club and nonetheless lied her way in. Grumaz, the receptionist, proved their point in her testimony.
That afternoon at Mar-a-Lago, Grumaz recalled, she stopped the woman and asked for her name. She said Zhang was not on the list of members or guests at the president’s club. Zhang showed the receptionist something on her cellphone indicating she was attending a United Nations Friendship event between China and the United States that evening. But Grumaz said she checked with the catering manager and found there was no such event scheduled.
Zhang had in fact bought a ticket for a Safari Night charity gala originally on the calendar for that evening. But the event had been canceled a few days before, something Zhang was well aware of at the time, prosecutors argued.
Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick
Credit: T.J. Kirkpatrick
Secret Service agent Samuel Ivanovich said he and other agents questioned Zhang in the Mar-a-Lago lobby before escorting her off the premises.
He said when the agents began to search several electronic devices inside her purse, Zhang “became aggressive.” But she agreed to go to the Secret Service’s West Palm Beach office for questioning, he said.
iPhone revealed clues
Ivanovich said Zhang explained during the interview that she made arrangements for her trip to Mar-a-Lago through a man named “Charles,” and that she also planned to visit other parts of the United States. She told him she knew Charles only through their phone messaging on the “We Chat” social media app popular in China.
The agent said he pressed Zhang about why she initially told the Mar-a-Lago security staff that her reason for coming to the president’s private club was to go to the pool.
“She stated that she did not say that,” Ivanovich testified.
Federal agents later searched her iPhone and discovered that Zhang had received text messages from a man named “Charles,” who told her that the March 30 event had been canceled days before she left China. But Zhang, who booked her own flight with $2,000 in cash, flew from Shanghai via Newark to Palm Beach on March 28 anyway, according to trial evidence.
“Zhang clearly knew that the supposed event did not exist based on the WeChat conversation retrieved from her cellphone,” prosecutors wrote in court papers accusing her of lying. “Despite knowing that, she purchased a one-way ticket from Shanghai, China, to Palm Beach in order to sneak on Mar-a-Lago while the president and family members were in Palm Beach.”
