html How long can the 369-year-old father continue to work for Wu Ying?
Author | Wu Lijuan
Editor | Gao Yan
Source | Yema Finance
At Jinjiang Inn Hotel on Changchun Street in Beijing, there is always an old man named Wu Yongzheng who visits regularly all year round. He went to Beijing from his hometown of Dongyang, Zhejiang, for one thing only: to submit complaint materials for his daughter Wu Ying who was in prison, and he went to the media to repeat Wu Ying's story in detail with the media reporters.
Wu Yongzheng has a bright smile. Although he is a little thin, he is still in good spirits. His already gray temples were dyed black and shiny, and he always wore a clean shirt. Although he was born a farmer, he looked like an entrepreneur from the last century.
htmlAt the age of 69, he did not flirt with his grandchildren like other old people of this age. Instead, he kept running around Beijing, Hangzhou, and Dongyang for his imprisoned daughter. Overturning the case for Wu Ying seems to have become the most important thing or even everything in his life.
In another 19 years, Wu Ying, who is serving her sentence in the Zhejiang Province Women's Prison, will be released from prison. By then, she will be 62 years old.
"The wealth a person has in his life has already been determined. If a person's wealth exceeds the limit, he is destined to pay the price." This is what Wu Ying left in a letter sent to her family after her arrest. One sentence.
As a well-known wholesale and distribution center for small commodities, Yiwu has gathered commercial capital from Zhejiang and even the country, and is known as the "BMW County" in the country. Dongyang is also an ordinary small county in the central part of Zhejiang Province, closely adjacent to Yiwu.
In 2006, the 25-year-old "billionaire sister" Wu Ying became famous in Dongyang. In just three months, she purchased more than 100 shops, founded 8 industrial companies, and established the True Color Group, which was an unparalleled success. Before that, she was just an ordinary beauty technician.
Once the prosperity is gone, the falling flowers are like people who have fallen from a building. Just half a year later, the "mysterious rich woman" was arrested by the police for illegal fund-raising and fraud, and was sentenced to death by the court in the first instance in 2009, triggering a great discussion about the death penalty throughout society. After several trials, in 2018 The sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison and deprived of political rights for 10 years.
It has been 17 years since Wu Ying was arrested in 2007, and 15 years have passed since the first instance verdict of Wu Ying's case in 2009. But controversies surrounding his marriage, property and debts continue.
html In 2015, Wu Ying's father Wu Yongzheng has been defending her innocence. In , when he was nearly 70 years old, he also learned to post articles and videos on his official account . He often said: "I don't know if I will see her released from prison in my lifetime."
persistence
|After sending 880 pages of materials in prison to appeal again, Wu Ying still insists on her innocence 11 years later
11 years after the 2012 final trial, in prison Wu Ying still insists that she is innocent. In May 2023, Wu Ying sent 880 pages of complaint materials from prison, including 23 pieces of materials such as legal documents, court hearings and investigation transcripts, notarial certificates, and supporting documents. Wu Yongzheng immediately sent this material to the Supreme People's Court.
The complaint mentioned that the actual actor in the Wu Ying case was the True Color Group. "At the private entrepreneurs symposium held on November 23, 2018, the Supreme People's Court once again emphasized the issue of correctly distinguishing property entities, explaining that the court of first instance mixed legal entity entities with legal representative natural persons, which was not in compliance with the regulations."
2024 On the eve of the Spring Festival last year, Beijing was in the cold season, with the temperature remaining at around 0 degrees. Wu Yongzheng came from his hometown in Dongyang, wearing only a jacket and shivering from the cold. He also brought two bottles of Erguotou with him. This time I still submitted materials to the lawyer and sent a letter of complaint to the Supreme Court.
Wu Yongzheng's most frequent actions were to sit and read materials and sort out letters sent home from his daughter from prison. The slightest movement of his body would make his chest crackle. Although he has emphysema, he still can't quit the habit of smoking. He said that he is old and has problems with his cervical spine. Smoking can at least relieve his anxiety. However, while soothing his mood, tobacco and alcohol were also damaging the father's body, and he didn't have much time left.
“It’s my birthday in a few days.Occasionally I look in the mirror and touch my increasingly sagging cheeks, and my originally energetic mood suddenly becomes gloomy... I don't remember what I looked like when I was a child... Dad, I know you go around for my sake. Running around, doing everything by yourself, maybe smoking and drinking are ways to relieve your worries, but it is still appropriate to do so in moderation. "This passage is excerpted from a letter sent home by Wu Ying in 2014. In the letters sent home by Wu Ying for more than ten years, a large part of the content discusses legal issues, and there are many more instructions to advise her father to quit smoking and drinking.
He is nearly 70 years old, but he is still worried about his daughter in prison. Not long ago, on March 23, Wu Yongzheng returned home after being hospitalized in Dongyang for a week. On November 6 last year, he received a letter from the Zhejiang High Court. The SMS notification stated that the complaint materials have been transferred to the hospital and handed over to the filing court for processing, and a response will be given within 3 months. However, has been 2 months away from the deadline for reply on February 6, and has been extended to , and there has been no further news. .
Previously, From the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2023, Wu Yongzheng, his lawyer, and his agent had submitted complaint materials to the Zhejiang Provincial High Court 6 times and to the Supreme Court 2 times. "A flash in the pan
Wu Ying is the eldest in the family, and she has three younger sisters. Not long after she was born, her father took her to the northwest, and taught her how to read and write every day. He hoped that she would go to college in the future and be assigned a job. Wu Yongzheng hopes most that Wu Ying can go After graduating from junior high school at the age of 16, Wu Ying did not go to high school and went to Dongyang Technical School. He majored in accounting and dropped out after one and a half years.
In 2000, while working as an apprentice in a beauty salon, Wu Ying met a man three years older than him, Zhou Hongbo. The two fell in love and soon got married. Who would have thought that their love fairy tale would turn into a business myth? In 2005, Zhou Hongbo invested 250,000 yuan and the couple opened a beauty salon. The popular sheep placenta beauty project made Wu Ying a lot of money. , which laid the network and foundation for her future fundraising and entrepreneurship. After making her first pot of gold, Wu Ying founded the Noble Beauty and Bodybuilding Salon, Sheraton Club, Leisure House, etc.
If she had been content with the status quo, Wu Ying would have become a minor local celebrity. The boss lived a prosperous life in the small town of Dongyang. However, as his business grew, Wu Ying began to yearn for greater wealth.
In Wu Yongzheng's eyes, Wu Ying, who was only 25 years old at the time, was still too young. Lack of social experience. What he didn't expect was that Wu Ying registered a company in Dongyang, and by the time he found out, Wu Ying had already opened a shop.
htmlIn the early 20th century, in Zhejiang, where private capital was abundant, financing difficulties were common for small and medium-sized enterprises. The phenomenon of private lending has always been popular, especially in Wenzhou, Jinhua and other places.Wu Ying, who is enterprising by nature, is no longer satisfied with his own small business, and even started to embark on the road of "lending to make a fortune". A man named Lin Weiping. The people from Yiwu are the capital brokers who created the myth of her sudden wealth.
According to the final judgment, from 2005 to the end of 2006, Wu Ying borrowed money in various names from his "cousin" Lin Weiping who was introduced by others and other people he met through Lin Weiping, and raised money from 11 relatives and friends in total. A total of 380 million yuan was borrowed from Lin Weiping alone, and 320 million yuan was borrowed. The money was used to expand his business territory in Dongyang. Lin Weiping's money came from more than 50 people. The funds of these creditors were either loans or bank loans, but they have been unable to repay them. Most of them are dishonest people.
In just a few months, Wu Ying bought hundreds of shops and founded 8 companies. The True Color Group covers bathing, car rental, commerce, coffee, furniture and other industries. In 2006, when the real estate industry just started, she also invested heavily in real estate, owning more than 100 properties in Zhejiang and Hubei.
In November 2006, Wu Ying was said by "Oriental Morning Post" that her net worth of 3.6 billion could rank 68th on the "Hurun Rich List" and 6th on the "Rich Women List". She was the youngest billionaire at that time. Thousands of rich women.In fact, this is just information that is misunderstood by the Internet and misunderstood by the public. Wu Ying and the True Color Group were not included in Hurun China's Richest Women List in 2006.
"Hurun Rich" is fake, but the "billionaire sister" known as an inspirational model is fact. Wu Ying was already praised by public opinion into a colorful, beautiful and mysterious bubble.
However, from being famous to being detained, Wu Ying enjoyed the limelight for less than a year before she fell instantly.
When Wu Ying was arrested by the Dongyang Municipal Public Security Bureau on February 7, 2007, Wu Yongzheng was busy with business in Lanzhou and rushed back without stopping.
In the first instance verdict in 2009, Wu Yongzheng became the father of a death row prisoner.
After that, he gave up his business and devoted himself to Wu Ying's case. Dongyang, Hangzhou, Beijing...the pace of running for my daughter never stops.
On May 21, 2012, the Zhejiang Provincial Higher People’s Court announced the final verdict of Wu Ying’s death sentence with a two-year reprieve. But Wu Yongzheng was still deeply shocked by this result. He insisted from beginning to end that Wu Ying was innocent. At 21:47 that night, Sina Weibo, whose real name was authenticated as "Wu Ying's father", posted a blog post: "Complain to the end! Five years is not enough, ten years!!"
Two years later, Wu Ying was commuted to life imprisonment. 4 years later, in 2018, the sentence was reduced to 25 years in prison. (The period of commutation of a life sentence to fixed-term imprisonment is calculated from the date of commutation.)
As one of the people closest to the Wu family, the author of "Wu Ying: The Crime and Punishment of a Billionaire Sister" Wan Yin once publicly commented that the reason for the ups and downs of the Wu Ying case was because there was a shrewd and stubborn father behind it.
From the first instance verdict to the present, Wu Yongzheng has been defending his daughter’s innocence, finding lawyers, and investigating the relevant circumstances of the case, often carrying boxes full of litigation materials, and has been running around for 15 years. Wu Yongzheng has the highest expectations and strictest requirements for his daughter Wu Ying. Whenever there are differences in opinions between the two, if he thinks Wu Ying is wrong, he will "scold" Wu Ying even when visiting prison.
Wu Ying's symphony of destiny has twists and turns and has long been settled. However, she did not apply for a reduced sentence and insisted that she was innocent. To this day, Wu Yongzheng is still insisting on Wu Ying's innocence. He only spent 300,000 yuan on printing documents, and the total expenses were in the millions. He often said that he was "Xianglin's Wife", and after talking about his daughter hundreds of times, he became nagging.
hustle
|Wu Ying's "Crime and Punishment"
After Wu Ying was sentenced to death in 2009, it triggered discussions among many legal scholars.
Law Professor Zhang Qianfan believes that Wu Ying did not cause any violent harm to anyone's life or person, and therefore did not generate huge public outrage; even if he was convicted of "fund-raising fraud", he only harmed the economic interests of 11 victims. It also caused their funds to fail to be deposited in legal banks, thus causing inconvenience to the country's financial regulation, but this alone seems far from enough to rise to the level of "causing significant losses to the interests of the country and the people."
Sun Jianzhang, a lawyer from Beijing Jingshi Law Firm, said that in 2011, before the death sentence was upheld in the second instance of Wu Ying’s case, the Criminal Law Amendment (8) was promulgated and implemented. This amendment abolished the crimes of bill fraud, financial bill fraud and letters of credit. The death penalty for fraud has been fiercely debated by all walks of life on the issue of whether to abolish the death penalty for fund-raising fraud. However, the Legislature has retained it considering that the crime of fund-raising fraud is a crime involving people involved and the amount is often extremely large and the social impact is particularly serious. The death penalty for fund-raising fraud.
Lawyer Sun Jianzhang believes that Wu Ying’s case happened at the point when the death penalty for fund-raising fraud was abolished. In the end, Wu Ying was not approved for the death penalty, but was sentenced to death with a two-year suspended execution. In 2015, the Criminal Law Amendment (9) was promulgated, which abolished the death penalty for fund-raising fraud without any suspense. The outcome of the Wu Ying case fully reflects the great progress of the country’s judicial system of “killing less and with caution” and “protecting human rights”.
This case took five years to be tried, and the disposal of the assets involved took more than ten years.According to statistics from Southern Weekend, from 2018 to 2021, the Dongyang Municipal Public Security Bureau disposed of 6, 44, 6, and 34 properties each year through Taobao’s judicial auction platform. As of September 2021, all 90 properties in Dongyang have been auctioned, with a total proceeds of approximately 202 million yuan. But creditors have said that they have not yet received a penny back.
Yema Finance found that the Dongyang Municipal Public Security Bureau had publicly auctioned the properties involved in the case in 2014. In August 2021, the Alibaba auction platform had a record of successful second auctions of 24 properties and items in the house under the name of Bense Holding Group, with a transaction price of 47.127 million yuan.
At the same time, Wu Ying's assets are also confusing. The verdict showed that from October 2006 to January 2007, Wu Ying purchased more than 140 million yuan of jewelry from jeweler Fang Lipo in the name of doing jewelry business, paid a payment of 23.81 million yuan, and owed 120 million yuan. The jewels have since been seized. Wu Yongzheng and Fang Lipo both said that at an asset disposal meeting in May 2014, the jewelry to be disposed of displayed by the asset disposal team established by the Dongyang Municipal Public Security Bureau was not the one Wu Ying purchased from Fang Lipo. So, where did the missing jewelry go? None of the parties can explain clearly.
In addition, Wu Ying's marital status is also a key part of asset disposal. As early as 2012, her husband Zhou Hongbo had already filed for divorce from Wu Ying. In 2021, Zhou Hongbo filed for divorce again, but quickly withdrew it.
On October 26, 2021 , Wu Ying sued her husband in prison, claiming that Zhou Hongbo lived with others as husband and wife and had children without divorcing her. The relationship between the two parties has completely broken down. requested the court to rule that the two divorced, and The husband and wife's joint debt totaling 598 million yuan should be divided equally, and the husband should share it with him. However, according to legal provisions, the legal fees alone for such a large lawsuit would be in the millions, so the matter was dropped. It has been 12 years since
accepted the commission from the Wu family in 2012. Wu Ying’s agent, lawyer Lv Haibo of Shanghai Haihuayongtai (Kunming) Law Firm, has also entered middle age from youth.
According to lawyer Lu Haibo, in December 2023, Wu Ying accused Zhou Hongbo of participating in the crime of fund-raising fraud in prison. The indictment stated: “In the case of his own fund-raising fraud, although Zhou did not directly participate in the fund-raising process, he was involved in the investment of True Color Company. He knew that the money was borrowed. His sister and cousin both worked as accountants and cashiers in the company. "
Zhou Hongbo himself did not express his position on the above news. On March 28, he spoke in a slightly weak voice and said that he was hospitalized.
In the 12 years since the complaint was filed, "Wu Ying's property defense battle", "Wu Ying's false accusation and frame-up case" and "Wu Ying's divorce case" have been staged one after another, but Lawyer Lu has many regrets. During this period, Wu Ying's criminal complaint made no progress. So far, he has not seen all the materials on Wu Ying's fund-raising fraud case. He has repeatedly requested the Zhejiang Jinhua Intermediate People's Court for case materials but failed. In addition, Wu Ying's property disposal was not transparent enough, and the participation of relevant creditors and Wu Ying (or his agent) was not enough. Although the law does not stipulate necessary participation procedures, the spirit of the law should be reflected in this sensitive and socially concerned matter .
Zhao Bingzhi, a well-known criminal law expert, also analyzed the Wu Ying case in the article "Legal Governance in Major Criminal Cases": "As a party to the case, the owner of the assets is generally behind bars, but the disposal of the assets involved in the case is unclear. The defendant's personal rights and interests will be involved, but the defendant's right to appeal is often not protected during the disposal, and there is no cross-examination procedure in court. This results in the defendant and his assets being disposed of arbitrarily, which is equivalent to the disposal of the property without trial. . Therefore, protecting the parties’ right to know and appeal is also an important part of ensuring the fair handling of cases.”
Over the years, Wu Ying has been studying law-related knowledge in prison, and has also provided business advice to his family. He has drafted multiple business plans in an attempt to improve the family’s economic situation and even hope to repay debts after he is released from prison. .
She has climbed to the top and fallen to the bottom. Wu Ying, now 43, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison and has served less than 6 years. She will be released after serving her sentence if she is not commuted. She will be 62 years old when she is released from prison. She hopes that she will be able to regain her life and be reunited with her 88-year-old father.
Time flies, and personal destiny fluctuates in the tide of the times. It is the present. The record will be revealed in the future. For Wu Ying, her father's struggle gave her a new life; and Wu's father's persistence also promoted the progress of justice; for the public who paid attention to Wu Ying's case, Wu Ying's father's 15 years Working hard for his daughter every day makes people see a father's deep love for his daughter, which spans time and space and touches people's hearts.
Have you heard about Wu Ying's case?
