Two China-born, Buddhists working for an Asian organized crime outfit and using credit card data from unsuspecting victims to dupe Macy's at Brea Mall out of more than $51,000 in 2013 have been punished.
In mid-August inside Orange County's Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter sentenced 22-year-old, Santa Monica College student Yuanqiang Liu (a.k.a. Q. Liu Yuan and Liu Yuang) to a term of supervised probation for two years.
The case against Lui's partner in crime, Li Qin Lin (a.k.a. Mei Qin Chen), was shrouded in greater secrecy, but this month Carter punished him with a term of 366 days of incarceration.
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Though court records reveal the duo was at least partially responsible for more than $51,000 in losses, they must jointly pay restitution of only $5,800.
At the time Lui and Lin were caught trying to buy goods at Macy's using a fake California driver's license they possessed 38 counterfeit credit cards.
While Nanjing-native Lui knew he was committing crimes, he played a relatively minor role in the underworld operation, is a practicing Buddhist and expressed sincere remorse, according to his defense lawyer.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.