Sex-assault case against driving instructor revisited
Almost three years since a Chinese-speaking Windsor driving instructor was accused of sexually assaulting a female student he took to Michigan, the matter is returning to U.S. court.
The long and complicated case of Ningan Hu, now 64, is slated for review by a panel of state judges with the Michigan Court of Appeals on March 6.
The Livingston County Prosecutor’s office is hoping to reinstate charges against Hu — four counts of criminal sexual misconduct — after the charges were dismissed in September 2017.
“This is kind of convoluted,” admitted William Worden, an assistant prosecuting attorney in Livingston County.
The case began in May 2016 when a 25-year-old University of Windsor student went to police in Livingston County saying that she’d been plied with alcohol, groped and raped.
The student, a Chinese national living in Windsor, told police that she’d been taking driving lessons from Hu, they had crossed the border during a session, and had stopped at a residence in Livingston County.
Hu was arrested. Due to a language barrier, the Livingston County Sheriff ’s Office could only communicate with him via interpreter.
Hu was kept in custody. In the months that followed, a second complainant came forward — also a Chinese woman who had been studying in Windsor — with a similar account of being sexually assaulted during a driving lesson in Livingston County in November 2014.
“Both women were very similar in terms of where they were from, where they were going to school, the fact that they had wanted to get a licence so that they could drive (in Canada), and they had hired Mr. Hu as their driving instructor,” Worden noted.
The case was headed to trial in September 2017, but the prosecution asked that proceedings be delayed 30 days due to visa problems of one of the complainants, who was to be the main witness.
At that point, Hu had been in custody 16 months.
Hu’s lawyer in Michigan, Alona Sharon, asked for dismissal of all charges. The judge agreed. “One of the women could not be there,” Worden explained. “Mr. Hu had been incarcerated. He was in jail for quite a few months .... The judge decided to dismiss the case.” Hu was released.
The Livingston County Prosecutor filed an appeal of the dismissal — a lengthy process that has ultimately resulted in the appellate hearing scheduled for March 6. But Hu’s lawyer pointed out that the charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning that the prosecutor’s office could have charged her client again at any time. “There has been nothing preventing that office from charging him again,” Sharon said.
“There were several pre-trial motions before this case was supposed to go to trial. The prosecutor’s office was unhappy with some of the court’s rulings .... It’s very complicated, but they are trying to have the pre-trial motions essentially revisited.”
Worden agreed that the judge had made pre-trial rulings that were “unfavourable to the prosecution,” resulting in the suppression of certain evidence such as Hu’s original statement to police.
“The reason the judge suppressed the confession was because he said Mr. Hu didn’t understand,” Worden said. “(Hu) told the officer he spoke Mandarin Chinese, and we got an interpreter, but the judge found Mr. Hu did not understand his right to an attorney, and that lack of understanding tainted the whole procedure.” Worden said the Livingston County Prosecutor had an appeal pending to the Supreme Court to review the pre-trial rulings at the time that the case was dismissed. Sharon emphasized that her client’s English is “extremely broken.” “I only communicate with the assistance of an interpreter, and he always has interpreters with him in court.”
Hu is not required to attend the appellate arguments in March. Asked Hu’s current whereabouts, Worden was uncertain. “As far as I know, he went back to Canada.” Possible extradition from Canada or even China might be necessary, Worden said: “Certainly, that would involve a lot, depending on where he is.”
“We won’t cross that bridge until we come to it .... We’re just trying to get the case going again for the benefit of the victims, so that they can have some closure.” Sharon declined to comment on where Hu is now.
“What his status is in relation to China, I really can’t speak about. My understanding has always been that he is a Canadian citizen,” Sharon said.