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Mar-a-Lago Intruder Who Lied to Secret Service Gets 8 Months

Mar-a-Lago Intruder Who Lied to Secret Service Gets 8 Months

(Bloomberg) -- A Chinese woman was sentenced to eight months in prison for trespassing at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida and then lying about it to the Secret Service.

Yujing Zhang may be out of jail in about a week though. She already spent almost the full sentence behind bars as the case went through trial. She was also given two years supervised release and can appeal the sentence.

Prosecutors asked the judge to sentence Zhang to 18 months. Federal sentencing guidelines called for a sentence of zero to six months, but prosecutors said the judge should issue stiffer punishment as a deterrent for similar crimes and that she should be held accountable for lying to another judge about how much money she had.

Zhang talked her way onto the property when the First Family was in town for a visit and Trump was golfing nearby.

“The circumstances of the case I would argue are very serious,” prosecutor Rolando Garcia said at a hearing Monday. “She clearly knew that she did not have permission to go on that property.”

It’s still not entirely clear why Zhang was at Mar-a-Lago.

Zhang claimed to have been a lost tourist, but she was found in possession of a bizarre and extensive cache of phones and other electronics, fueling suspicion of something more nefarious. Still, prosecutors eventually walked back one of their most explosive assertions -- that a thumb drive she brought to Mar-a-Lago contained malware.

Mar-a-Lago Intruder Who Lied to Secret Service Gets 8 Months

The case took a wacky turn when she inexplicably fired her public defenders and represented herself at trial, despite a lack of legal background. At times, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman lost patience with her repeated breaches of court protocol.

In perhaps the strangest episode, she showed up on the first day of the trial in prison garb, despite a convention for defendants to wear street clothes so the jury isn’t influenced by their appearance. Asked for an explanation, she told Altman that she had no undergarments, and that she was reluctant to wear a silky blouse provided to her without a bra, so she had put on the prison uniform instead.

The judge called a recess, and she was apparently provided with the necessary articles of clothing.

Her sentencing was far from the usual affair as well, with Zhang reluctant to work with her public defender, Kristy Militello.

“There is no coming back,” Altman warned Zhang. “Today is the day of your sentencing hearing. So, this is it. This is the big day. The question is do you want to do that on your own, or do you want Ms. Militello’s help?”

After a brief recess, Zhang allowed Militello to speak on her behalf.

The public defender told the judge Zhang came to the U.S. with the “fantastical idea” of proposing a business partnership to the Trump family.

In a similar case, Chinese national Zhao Qianli was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment -- above the guideline range -- for trespassing and taking photographs at Navy installations in Key West, Florida.

The case is U.S. v. Zhang, 19-cr-80056, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Fort Lauderdale).

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Levin in Miami at jlevin20@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider, Anthony Lin

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.