On Tuesday, October 10, 2023, a Brooklyn jury returned a guilty verdict in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, convicting both Qing Ming Yu (Allen Yu) and Zhe Zhang (Zack Zhang) of murder-for-hire for the shooting of Xin Chris Gu outside a KTV club on the evening of February 12, 2019, in Flushing, New York.
The jury convicted Mr. Zhang, despite minimal evidence to prove that he was the driver of the white Honda Accord, which was seen on video leaving the area of the KTV club.
In fact, as the court showed, there was no forensic or physical evidence that put Mr. Zhang on the scene. The jury were ultimately swayed by two witnesses with inconsistent testimony against You You (the nephew of Qing Ming Yu) and David Yu, who has been perceived before as a violent felon.
You You testified that he was angered by Mr. Gu for humiliating his uncle, Allen Yu, by stealing his uncle’s construction clients and jeopardizing the family’s wealth.
David Yu was You You’s boyhood friend, who admitted to committing multiple violent crimes in the past, sometimes together with You You. You You and David Yu both admitted to engaging in armed robbery before. Before being arrested, the two robbed a private casino owner of $300,000 at gunpoint, a crime both of them admitted at trial.
You You and David Yu testified that they went to the KTV club on February 12, 2019, to commit the murder of Mr. Gu, but got “cold feet,” and drove a mile away to do drugs instead and fell asleep.
The evidence showed that Mr. Gu called an Uber car to drive him from the club that night. The Uber driver arrived at the same time as the masked shooter and witnessed the shooting. The Uber driver testified at trial that he saw the shooter and would never forget his eyes – “Asian eyes.” Also, evidence during the trial showed that You You received a phone call from someone inside the KTV club close to the time of the shooting.
This would be the only way the shooter would know that Mr. Gu was leaving the club because the Honda, where the shooter must have waited prior to committing the murder, was parked in an area with an obstructed view of the door of the club, while the area was poorly lit. Also worth noting is that before the trial started, the defense lawyers challenged government search warrants that contained multiple lies by the FBI agent in charge of the investigation. Defense lawyers argued that the FBI agent used false information to get the judge to issue the warrants. It is also worth arguing that the agent omitted crucial facts, which made his affidavit knowingly false.
First, FBI Agent Lin included in his affidavit to the court a shocking lie that David Yu, a government witness, had been cooperating with the FBI and gave truthful information that had been corroborated by other evidence. At the time of Lin’s affidavit, however, David Yu had only been interviewed once at the time of his arrest on a narcotics charge.
At that time, Yu denied participating in the murder of Mr. Gu and gave no information to the FBI at all. Lin did not include in his affidavit the fact that he had another cooperating witness, Carlos Senquiz, who earlier told Lin that
David Yu confessed to being the shooter of Mr. Gu. This was nowhere in Agent Lin’s affidavit to the judge, in support of the search warrants. Despite contradictions, the judge upheld the lawfulness of the search warrants.
Defense lawyers for Mr. Zhang and Mr. Allen Yu filed a series of post-trial motions after the guilty verdicts. The judge just denied these motions on Monday evening. Defense lawyers requested the Court to order the government to unseal grand jury testimony, which led to the indictment in this case.
The judge refused. Defense lawyers argued that these grand jury transcripts would show that the indictment relied on testimony that Allen Yu allegedly promised to pay Mr. Zhang and You You large sums of money for the murder of Gu, which is what the government was saying in pretrial submissions to the Court. In the middle of the trial, You You gave surprising testimony that money was never paid to him or Mr. Zhang for the murder of Mr. Gu. Instead, he changed his testimony to say that Mr. Zhang wanted to get involved in the murder-for-hire, in exchange for receiving the business contacts and lists of suppliers, contractors used by Allen Yu in his Amoco business.
In reality, Mr. Zhang was not in the construction business and testimony at trial showed Mr. Zhang was looking to legitimize his marijuana business. If the government changed its theory at trial from the one presented to the grand jury, under constitutional law, the case would have potentially been thrown out.
Also, the government admitted to hiding evidence from the Zhang defense team before trial. After the guilty verdicts, the government produced evidence of grand jury testimony and FBI interviews with a witness who clearly contradicted one of the government’s cooperating witnesses.
The government had one witness, Roberto Burbano, who was not involved in the murder-for-hire, who testified that he saw a Chinese male driving a white Mercedes with a black top pull over and stop and talk to Antony Abreu on the same night of Mr. Gu’s murder.
Other than David Yu and You You, who admitted to being involved in the murder, Mr. Burbano’s testimony was the only witness who identified a car the government proved was connected to Mr. Zhang and someone who looked like him together with the alleged shooter, Abreu.
However, the government never told Mr. Zhang’s defense team before or during trial that they interviewed another witness who contradicted Mr. Burbano’s account.
This witness testified before the grand jury that Burbano was not present with Abreu at the time of the alleged encounter with the man who resembled Mr. Zhang. Any government misconduct, known as a Brady violation, should have led to a new trial for Mr. Zhang, but the judge denied the defense’s motion.
