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Mar-a-Lago Jury Is Told China Intruder Snubbed Buffett Meeting

Mar-a-Lago Jury Hears of Intruder Found Texting in Restroom

(Bloomberg) -- A Chinese woman on trial for trespassing at Mar-a-Lago knew an event at President Donald Trump’s club that she paid thousands of dollars to attend was canceled before leaving China, but went anyway, an FBI analyst told a jury.

An apologetic travel-package provider offered Yujing Zhang alternatives, including a meeting with Bill and Hillary Clinton or Warren Buffett, but she wasn’t interested, an examination of her iPhone 7 showed, according to the analyst.

Zhang, who is representing herself, chose not to call any witnesses, although she addressed the jury briefly in broken English, insisting she had a contract to go to Mar-a-Lago to see the president and his family.

“It’s the fact that I did nothing wrong,” she said. “I did not lying, and I do think I followed instructions.”

The jury of 10 women and two men is to start deliberating Wednesday. If convicted of trespassing and lying to the Secret Service, Zhang faces as long as six years in prison.

Earlier Tuesday, a member of the staff at Mar-a-Lago said she was unnerved when she saw Zhang filming the property with her phone and then retreating into a bathroom to send text messages.

Ariela Grumaz, a receptionist, said she noticed something was off about Zhang and flagged her to the Secret Service. Even after she was under scrutiny, Zhang retreated to the bathroom, where Grumaz said she found her hastily sending text messages. When they emerged from the restroom, Zhang was swarmed by Secret Service agents, but remained calm and poised, according to Grumaz.

“That’s what shocked me,” Grumaz testified Tuesday. “She had a blank face. She was totally in control.”

The prosecution used the testimony of Grumaz and members of the Secret Service on Tuesday to portray Zhang as a woman determined to gain access to Mar-a-Lago with no reason to be there, but while the president’s family was visiting.

The case has attracted scrutiny of security procedures at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s so-called winter White House. The president regularly visits the property and conducts official business there, but it also operates as a private business dependent on traffic from members and special events.

Investigators continue to look into Zhang as part of a broader FBI-led investigation into whether Chinese operatives are targeting Trump and Mar-a-Lago to get information about the administration’s policies regarding China.

Prosecutor Rolando Garcia told the jury in closing that Zhang not only entered Mar-a-Lago without permission, but did so knowing full well she wasn’t allowed to be there.

“Two days before she flies to the United States, she is unequivocally being told that that event has been canceled,” Garcia said.

“She was bound and determined to get on that property,” he said. “She wasn’t some lost and misguided tourist.”

Zhang, who fired her public defenders, continued to exhibit a limited understanding of the U.S. legal system. Availing herself at times of a Mandarin interpreter, she attempted to object to certain exhibits being entered into the record.

But she gave no reason beyond saying the exhibits -- such as a photograph of the Mar-a-Lago lobby -- were “sensitive.” She didn’t say why they were sensitive.

The photograph of the Mar-a-Lago lobby presented by prosecutors shows a sign that explicitly prohibits video and photographs of the property.

U.S. District Judge Roy Altman again advised her to avail herself of her public defenders, who are in the courtroom on stand-by, per the judge’s orders.

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

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, David Glovin

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.