The sentence, when it came, was 30 years. Guo Wengui, the Chinese billionaire who left his homeland about a decade ago, heard it on Monday in a Manhattan courtroom packed with his own supporters.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said his fraud had cost more than 1,000 people around the world hundreds of millions of dollars. Guo, she said, “preyed on those seeking to bring Democracy to China,” and spent their money on a lavish life. She ordered him to forfeit $889 million.
Guo was once counted among China’s wealthiest men. In the United States he recast himself as a critic of the Communist Party, and prosecutors say that standing drew in the money. They put the total at more than $1 billion, invested by hundreds of thousands of people in entities he controlled: GTV Media Group Inc., the Himalaya Farm Alliance and the Himalaya Exchange. He was convicted on nine of 12 counts after a seven-week trial.
His own remarks to the court were brief and mostly about himself. He spent more time on jail conditions than on the charges. He said he had been taken to the hospital early that morning, and he denied a prosecutor’s claim that he was faking illness. He said he vomited repeatedly on the way back to jail. “When I came here, I said: ‘I have a tummy ache, I need to go to the bathroom, I don’t feel well,’” he said through an interpreter.
On the case, one line. “The reason I came to the U.S. was to destroy the CCP.”
Torres was unpersuaded. She said Guo “takes no responsibility for his actions and instead insists incredibly his conduct caused no loss and harmed no one.” She read from victims’ letters, which described lost life savings, anxiety, shame, and relatives who turned on them. Wei Chen, who testified at trial, said the fraud “destroyed my life” and her family’s.
Prosecutors had asked for at least 30 years. Guo’s lawyers argued that Beijing had pursued him for exposing corrupt officials and that a long term would “embolden further efforts to eliminate Chinese dissidents from public life.” They pointed out that defendants in similar cases received two to four years. Guo denies the accusations of rape, kidnapping and bribery that Chinese authorities have made against him.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday it had noted the sentencing. It said Guo is wanted by the Chinese government and subject to an Interpol Red Notice, a request to police worldwide to arrest a suspect pending extradition.
Supporters applauded and shouted as Guo left the courtroom.
