Ex denies using Zhong for money

A former boyfriend of businesswoman Elizabeth Zhong has been accused of using her for money by the lawyer defending a man charged with Zhong’s murder.

The Crown’s case is Zhong’s former business partner Fang Sun stabbed her multiple times. But the defence says Sun, who is on trial for Zhong’s murder, is not a murderer. Someone else killed Zhong.

Elizabeth (Ying) Zhong’s body was found on November 28, 2020, after she was reported missing.

Sun was charged with Zhong’s murder 11 weeks after her death.

Yesterday,

Zhong’s former boyfriend, Kai

Gui Zheng, told the High Court at Auckland the pair had met in early 2019 before becoming partners for six months. They also incorporated a film firm together called Passion Pictures Group and remained friends after the breakup.

While the pair were together, they took a trip to China in which Zhong used Zheng’s Chinese bank account to transfer about $20,000.

That account was later frozen, Zheng told the court.

In the week leading up to Zhong’s death, Zheng told the jury, he returned from a trip on November 27 and later found out Zhong was missing and was worried because of a previous suicide attempt in October.

Under cross-examination Zheng was asked about $50,000 put into his account from Zhong.

Zheng said it was transferred to their film company.

‘‘Were you and Elizabeth . . . in a relationship or was it the case that you identified her as someone as whom you could get money from?’’ Sun’s lawyer Sam Wimsett asked. Zheng disputed this.

Sun and Zhong became business partners in 2014 and invested about $28 million together into several businesses in New Zealand. The pair then fell out and Sun claimed Zhong owed him millions.

At the time of her death, Zhong’s winemaking and film companies were in receivership or liquidation.

The trial before Justice Neil Campbell and a jury continues.