Refusal to Plead Guilty and Accept Punishment | Liangliang Wuxi Blockchain Case Receives Harsh Sentence in First Trial
Author: Kay LIN
Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin. (Psalms73:18 ESV)
On December 27, 2023, at 3 p.m., the People’s Court of Xishan District, Wuxi, pronounced its verdict on Liangliang’s case of organizing and leading a pyramid scheme. The judgment was as follows: Liangliang was sentenced to ten years in prison and fined twenty million RMB. The illegal income seized in the case was to be confiscated and turned over to the state treasury, with any shortfall to be further recovered; other properties were to be handled legally by the seizing authorities. After the presiding judge, Lin Lin, read the verdict, the court was immediately adjourned without asking Liangliang if he would appeal or allowing him to speak, thus concluding the trial!
For such an obvious case of wrongful and false accusation, the prosecution recommended a sentence of 6–7 years, but the Xishan Court harshly sentenced to 10 years! The Xishan Court’s approach is not only a retaliatory judgment against Liangliang’s insistent defense based on evidence and facts but also a clear surrender of the examination, judgment, and enforcement rights of the huge amount of property involved in the case related to tens of thousands of users’ legal property to the Xishan police.
Article 3 of our Criminal Law states: For actions expressly defined as criminal by the law, punishment shall be determined according to the law; if the law does not expressly define it as a criminal act, no punishment shall be imposed. This is a seemingly redundant statement. The first sentence of Article 3 is to prevent judicial personnel from treating guilty actions as innocent, emphasizing the protection function of legal interests. The second sentence is the iron law, the emperor principle of our criminal law — the principle of legality, i.e., no crime without a law, no punishment without a law. The principle of legality emphasizes the human rights protection function of criminal law. However, the Xishan Court of Wuxi, as a judicial organ, has fundamentally abused the law on pyramid schemes, failing to protect the property rights of investors and users and ignoring the human rights protection of entrepreneurs. Not only does the case not meet the subjective and objective elements of ‘pyramid schemes,’ i.e., no criminal intent to deceive and no factual objective of embezzling user assets, but it also imposes ‘pyramid schemes’ and even punishes heavily because the parties refuse to plead guilty and accept punishment, seriously violating human rights.
Criminal law is the most precise discipline. Article 5 of our Criminal Law: The severity of the criminal law should correspond to the crime committed by the criminal and the criminal responsibility they bear. This is another iron law — the principle of proportionality of crime and punishment, i.e., heavy punishment for serious crimes, light punishment for minor crimes. The precise formula for sentencing standards is: Sentencing standard = harm to legal interests + personal danger, where harm to legal interests responds to established facts, and the criminal law made in response is retributive or responsible. Personal danger is the possibility of re-offending, preventing unestablished facts, and the criminal law made in response is preventive or purposive. The Xishan Court of Wuxi has deviated significantly from the facts and legal basis in its sentencing decision. Even according to the prosecution’s self-consistent ‘indictment’ and ‘judgment,’ as well as the asset evidence presented in court and the fact of investing tens of millions of dollars in entrepreneurship, Liangliang did not illegally embezzle any assets of investors, users, or the company, i.e., there was no factual harm to legal interests, and as a technological developer of CoinXP and Hubdex, there was no personal danger. However, as of the day of the trial, Liangliang had been restricted in personal freedom and detained for two years, eight months, and fourteen days, and since November 19, 2022, he has been in extended detention, illegally detained for 405 days. The Xishan Court, in collaboration with law enforcement for profit-oriented law enforcement, has severely violated Liangliang’s basic personal rights and lost its independence and impartiality in adjudicating the case, unqualified to hear the case.
In fact, at the prosecution stage, the People’s Procuratorate of Xishan District, Wuxi, recommended that ‘Liangliang’s case’ be sentenced to three to four years in prison for the crime of illegally absorbing public deposits; recommended sentencing Liangliang to six to seven years in prison and a fine for organizing and leading pyramid schemes; and for multiple crimes, recommended sentencing Liangliang to seven to eight years in prison and a fine. After the case was transferred to the People’s Court of Xishan District, the charge of Liangliang’s suspected illegal absorption of public deposits was withdrawn, and under the circumstance of no substantial change in evidence in the case and the change from two crimes to one, the People’s Court of Xishan District should have reduced its original sentencing suggestion of 7 to 8 years. It should have fully considered the evidence and facts of Wuxi police’s multiple (even almost all) evidence forgeries presented by the defense lawyer in court and given a fair judgment, acquittal, or case withdrawal. However, the Xishan Court had already lost the balance of the scales due to its wrongful conduct. Because Liangliang and others have been seeking justice and refusing to plead guilty and accept punishment, the Xishan Court engaged in ‘separate case handling,’ using dark methods such as blocking lawyers’ visits to isolate Liangliang as a separate case and eventually sentenced him to ten years in the first trial. The Xishan Court of Wuxi disregarded the law and fair justice, made a retaliatory wrongful judgment against Liangliang, which is not a wise move. Further expanding the controversy over favoritism and injustice in this case will only expose more wrongful acts by the fabricators, bring shame to Wuxi’s judiciary, and render the government utterly untrustworthy.
Finally, I would like to send Psalm 73 to Liangliang in the Wuxi Detention Center. Although suffering has come upon him, justice will eventually come. I know he remains strong and good, and our whole family is proud of him. God truly treats the people of Israel kindly and those with pure hearts. I was in peril and almost stumbled and fell. I saw the proud and evil prosper and felt indignant. They live smoothly all their lives, healthy and strong. They do not suffer like others, do not experience the hardships of the world. They wear pride as a necklace and violence as a robe. They are fat, their eyes bulge, and their hearts are full of sin. They scoff and speak maliciously, intimidating and threatening with arrogant words. Their mouths blaspheme heaven, and their tongues defame the earth. God’s people also follow them, drinking the water in their cups. They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High notice?’ Look at these evil people, always living comfortably, their wealth increasing. I kept myself pure and innocent in vain, suffering every day, punished every day. If I had said so, I would have betrayed your people. I tried to understand all this but could not, until I entered your sanctuary and understood their end. You indeed put them in a place where it’s easy to slip, leading them into ruin. They are destroyed in a moment, utterly wiped out in terror. They are like a dream when one wakes up. Lord, when you arise, you will regard them as mere illusions. I was heartbroken and tormented. I was foolish and ignorant before you, like a beast. Yet I have always been with you; you hold my right hand and guide me. You instruct me with your loving teachings and will take me to glory. Besides you, who do I have in heaven? Besides you, I desire nothing on earth. Though my body and heart may fail, God is forever the strength of my heart and my eternal share. Those who stray from you will perish; you will destroy those who are unfaithful to you. Being close to God is so good for me. I take the Lord Jehovah as my refuge and proclaim all His works.” Psalm 73:1–28
Kay Lin
Dec. 28, 2024
Cell phone: 13810353633
