JD.com shares fall on new revelation in rape case involving CEO Liu in US

Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com Inc’s share dropped as much as 4.87 percent to $25.20 in premarket trading in the US on Monday, after new details emerged about sexual assault allegations against its founder and CEO Richard Liu Qiangdong.

In a report on Monday, Reuters cited WeChat messages from a female student at a university in the US state of Minnesota that offered previously unknown details behind the high-profile case involving one of the richest Chinese businessmen.

In WeChat messages to friend, the unidentified student wrote that Liu had forced her to have sex with him at her apartment after a dinner party, according to Reuters.

“I was not willing,” she wrote in Chinese on the messaging application around 2 am on August 31. “Tomorrow I will think of a way to escape,” she wrote, as she begged the friend not to call police. “He will suppress it,” she wrote, referring to Liu. “You underestimate his power.”

Liu was arrested later that day on suspicion of rape, according to a police report. He was released without being charged and has denied any wrongdoing through a lawyer.

The police department has turned over the findings of its initial investigation into the matter to local prosecutors for a decision on whether to bring charges against Liu. There is no deadline for making that decision, according to the Hennepin County Attorneys Office.

As the second-largest ecommerce website in China after Alibaba Group Holding, the company has attracted investors such as Walmart Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and China’s Tencent Holdings.

Liu holds nearly 80 percent of the voting rights in JD.com. Shares in the company have fallen about 15 percent since Liu’s arrest and are down about 36 percent for the year.

Jill Brisbois, a lawyer for Liu, said he maintains his innocence and has cooperated fully with the investigation.

“These allegations are inconsistent with evidence that we hope will be disclosed to the public once the case is closed,” Brisbois wrote in an email response to detailed questions from Reuters.

Loretta Chao, a spokeswoman for JD.com, said that when more information becomes available, “it will become apparent that the information in this note doesn’t tell the full story.”