A Palo Alto man who was arrested in June for allegedly raping a woman he knew at his home has been charged with six felony counts, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Dal Porto said.
Yue Zhou, 27, faces three counts of rape, one count of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of sexual battery and one count of felony false imprisonment. He has posted $500,000 bail and was released after his arrest, prior to the official filing of charges, Dal Porto said.
The woman, in her 20s, had dinner with Zhou and other acquaintances on June 25, she told Palo Alto police. Afterward, she dropped Zhou off at his home in the Charleston Meadows neighborhood. He invited her inside to have a glass of water and rest after she said she was tired, police said.
When the woman entered the home, Zhou allegedly raped her. After the assault, he allegedly prevented her from leaving by holding a knife while telling her she couldn’t go, police said. After several hours, the woman was able to leave the home and drove away. Police did not say how she escaped.
Detectives contacted Zhou at his home in the 4200 block of Wilkie Way and took him into custody without incident on June 28, according to police.
Zhou is scheduled to appear in Santa Clara County Superior Court in Palo Alto on Sept. 6, Dal Porto said.
First, I wonder why it took PAPD a week to arrest this man when the victim reported the crimes against her the next day?
It appears Facebook thinks he is guilty; apparently they fired Zhou soon after he was arrested! An immigrant who is without a job is supposed to be deported.
If Zhou is convicted of all the charges against him, will he actually serve prison time, or merely be sent back to China? Or will he serve his sentence, and then be deported? The laws on this don’t seem clear.
If he’s convicted, I’ll be very curious to find out whether he receives a severe sentence or one as light as that given to Brock Turner.
We already know that the justice system in California appears to preference male defendants over female victims in sexual assault cases, so it will be interesting to see whether justice is “colorblind” or not. What are the odds?
If he is found innocent, he will probably be deported just the same. He lost his job at Facebook after he was arrested.
Perhaps I missed something, but I didn’t find anything in this story or the one to which is linked (which is virtually identical) indicating that Mr. Zhou is anything other than a US citizen. Is Trump’s xenophobia infecting Palo Alto?
Zhou is a citizen of China, and he graduated from Beijing University. Read it in the Merc a couple of weeks ago, after he was arrested ( why was there a whole week between the alleged crime and the arrest, I wonder?).
You can also Google his name!
China does not allow dual citizenship. If a native Chinese person becomes a citizen of another country, the Chinese government often will not allow that person to return to visit family– a powerful preventative.
If he no longer enjoys steak, will he get out after 3 months?