Three High School Kids From Sentence To Prison For Attacking A California Classmate

 Three students from China were sentenced Wednesday to several years each in prison for stripping, beating and burning two classmates.



The defendants and victims were 'parachute kids' who studied in Southern California while their parents remained back home.

Yunyao 'Helen' Zhai was sentenced to 13 years behind bars; Yuhan 'Coco' Yang got 10 years; and Xinlei 'John' Zhang received a six-year term. All three, who admitted kidnap and assault, apologized in court for their actions.

'I hope they do not carry the wounds from what I did for the rest of their lives,' Zhai wrote of the victims in a statement read by her attorney.

Zhai and Zhang were accused of bullying a 16-year-old girl who was punched and slapped last March at a restaurant and a park in Rowland Heights, east of Los Angeles.

Two days later, prosecutors say, all three kidnapped an 18-year-old classmate and took her to a park where she was stripped, beaten, punched, kicked, spat on, burned with cigarettes and forced to eat her own hair during a five-hour assault.

The 16-year-old was attacked because Zhai felt she had disrespected her, and the other woman was attacked because of disputes over a boy and an unpaid restaurant bill, investigators said.

The defendants pleaded no contest last month to kidnapping and assault. A charge of torture, which carries a potential life sentence, was dropped.

In her statement, Zhai said living so far from her parents played a role in her actions.

'They sent me to the U.S. for a better life and a fuller education,' she said. 'Along with that came a lot of freedom, in fact too much freedom.
'Here, I became lonely and lost,' she wrote. 'I didn't tell my parents because I didn't want them to worry about me.'
Yang said the case was a wakeup call for 'parachute kid syndrome.'
'Parents in China are well-meaning and send their kids thousands of miles away with no supervision and too much freedom,' Yang said in a letter read by her attorney. 'That is a formula for disaster.'
Before sentencing, Zhang's father - a laborer-turned-businessman from Shenzhen, China - told reporters he regretted sending his son abroad.

Posted by Kris Akudo at 1:05PM