Yaoyao Jiang: Reconstructing the Courtroom Battle in Zhang Wanying’s Trial | Why Was the Judge Worried She Would Flee?

This video details the full courtroom defense and prosecution process during Zhang Wanying's second court appearance, which was a detention hearing. The defense attorneys attempted to prove that Zhang Wanying was not a flight risk by citing her American family, career, multiple properties, and guarantees from friends and family, and explained the habit of purchasing one-way tickets. Meanwhile, the prosecution accused her of posing a significant flight risk due to her extensive family and financial ties in China, the fact that her traveling companion had already returned to China, inaccurate asset declarations, and her unlocated Chinese passport. Ultimately, the judge ruled that she remain detained. At the same time, the program followed up on the latest investigative progress regarding the identity of her traveling companion Miao Fatai and the reasons for his return to China.

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Hello everyone, I am Yaoyaojiang, who loves to think and values logic. Yesterday, based on the criminal complaint and the FBI affidavit, we reconstructed minute by minute the entire process from Zhang receiving an assignment tasked by state security personnel to travel to Seattle for surveillance, up until the arrest at the airport, giving everyone a glimpse of the amateurish style of the Ministry of State Security of China. Viewers who haven't seen it can click the link in the pinned comment to catch up. Yesterday afternoon, Zhang Wanying made her second court appearance. This time, only one issue was being contested: continued detention or release on bail to go home? At 3:30 PM, Courtroom 540 of the Los Angeles Federal Court. Zhang Wanying, who was wearing the white jacket from the airport two days ago, had already changed into a white prison uniform, wearing both handcuffs and leg shackles. She smiled at her husband and relatives in the gallery. Her lawyer put family real estate and electronic monitoring plans before the judge: she would stay at home, and the properties would be mortgaged to the court. However, the prosecutor kept a close eye on two things: how many properties does this Zhang actually own, and where did the money come from? As a result, three properties with a total value of over $1.2 million still failed to secure her release; the more properties there were, the more questions the judge had instead. Why did Zhang Wanying's bail fail? Let me reconstruct the courtroom proceedings.

On October 5, Zhang Wanying made her first court appearance. That session was primarily to confirm identity, inform her of the charges, and address legal representation. Two days later, the prosecution and defense had their first direct showdown during the detention hearing. The location was Courtroom 540 on the fifth floor of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles. The hearing was presided over by U.S. Magistrate Judge Steve Kim. The court schedule also listed the name of Federal Public Defender Chad Pennington. However, on the day of the hearing, private criminal defense attorney Craig Harbaugh had already officially taken over. Harbaugh has practiced criminal defense for over 25 years, having spent nearly 20 of those years as a federal public defender. This time, Zhang Wanying hired a veteran familiar with federal criminal procedure. Harbaugh submitted a nine-page written brief that day, requesting the judge to release Zhang Wanying. So, how did he explain the one-way ticket to Shanghai? What family and assets do they have in both China and the U.S.? And what monitoring conditions is he willing to accept? These questions appeared in full for the first time in the public case files. This hearing did not determine guilt or innocence; it decided only one thing: whether he could go home first before the trial began. The main dispute between the two sides during this hearing was flight risk. The starting point of U.S. federal law is pretrial release, and the Supreme Court has a phrase frequently cited by criminal defense attorneys: liberty is the norm, and detention before trial should be strictly limited. Zhang Wanying's lawyer placed this sentence right at the very front of the brief.

The defense first started with the legal threshold. Title 18, United States Code, Section 951, which Zhang Wanying faces, is not among the types of offenses listed in the Bail Reform Act. The prosecution cannot demand detention based solely on the charge; it must present specific facts proving that Zhang Wanying poses a serious flight risk. It also needs to explain why GPS positioning, surrendering passports, and mortgaging real estate could not stop him. The government cannot simply say this is a Chinese spy case and keep a person locked up indefinitely. Bail in the U.S. is not just about buying freedom with money. The role of property collateral is to let the defendant know that once they run, both they and the guarantor will pay a heavy price. How much the house is worth is just one of the conditions. Before the court session, there is a department dedicated to assessing defendant risks called Pretrial Services. The recommendation given by this department was continued detention, on the grounds that Zhang might not return to court. But the assessment also listed favorable conditions for him, such as having a guarantor, a residence, family ties, and stable employment. What the prosecution and defense argued about that day was whether Zhang Wanying's family, career, and real estate in the U.S. could outweigh his relatives, business, and funds in China.

Zhang Wanying's defense lawyer, Harbaugh, first presented to the judge the life he had built in the United States. The brief stated that Zhang Wanying came to the U.S. in 2014 and became a U.S. citizen through naturalization in 2020. He got married in 2017, and his husband is a U.S. citizen. The couple has two daughters, aged eight and five. He obtained a master's degree in the U.S., worked in real estate in Irvine for 10 years, and has no criminal record. In 2021, he and her husband bought a residence. In 2024, they moved into another USD 2 million home and rented out the first one. In June 2026, they sold the second property and moved back to the first one. The defense counted all of these as reasons why he would not flee, with the reasoning being that his husband is here, his two young daughters are here, his job is here, and his houses are here. If he were to flee to China, he would lose the life he had spent more than a decade building.

The defense also explained the most glaring one-way ticket to Shanghai at the airport. The brief stated that Zhang has long purchased round-trip tickets separately. In 2025, he returned to China in January, June, August, and October, and each time he successfully returned to the U.S. as well. In early 2020, he went to China again, and on April 2 he bought a ticket back to the U.S. in China, returning to the U.S. four days later. In June, he flew to Paris and returned to the U.S. from Nice, France. At the end of July, he flew to Tokyo and returned to the U.S. on August 20. These outbound and return trips were also purchased separately. The defense stated that the trip on October 4 had been planned by Fuhua for several weeks. He was going to visit his mother and specifically waited until his two daughters finished celebrating their birthdays before leaving. He did not know that the FBI was investigating him, nor did he know that the court had issued an arrest warrant. He bought the ticket using his own name and walked into the airport holding a U.S. passport, without changing his name or detouring. In the defense counsel's narrative, this one-way ticket was simply his consistent ticket-purchasing method; every time in the past, he separately purchased the return ticket and ultimately successfully returned to the United States.

The lawyer also seized on a timing discrepancy. The criminal complaint alleges that Zhang Wanying went to Seattle on September 1, 2025, to stake out the family of Taiwan President Lai Ching-te's eldest son. In the prosecution's materials, Zhang's last contact with the Chinese officials involved in the case occurred in October 2025; in the nearly one year since then, she has left and returned to the United States multiple times. The defense therefore countered: if Zhang Wanying truly intended to flee, why would she suddenly abandon her husband, two daughters, career, and home to return to China only now? Regarding the same one-way ticket, the prosecution sees an escape, while the defense speaks of a habit of purchasing tickets. If the prosecution wants to keep Zhang detained, they need more solid evidence. The defense then laid out the conditions for release one by one. In the written proposal, Zhang Wanying would sign a $100,000 appearance bond and use the family's current residence as collateral within thirty days. The defense stated that after deducting the mortgage, this house is worth at least $700,000. Additionally, there are four guarantors: her husband and his sister each guarantee $50,000, and her husband's father and a family friend each guarantee $10,000, totaling $120,000. If Zhang Wanying flees, the court can dispose of the property used as collateral and can also pursue the four guarantors for the amounts they each pledged. Beyond the money and the house, the defense also designed an electronic fence; Zhang Wanying would be restricted to her home, with an electronic GPS monitor providing 24-hour tracking. Except for work, court appearances, meeting with lawyers, medical visits, and attending her daughters' school activities, all other outings would require prior approval. She must not approach airports, seaports, or any ports of entry/exit, and must surrender all travel documents and sign a statement guaranteeing she holds no other documents. The mobile phone and computer she uses would be subject to monitoring, and she would be prohibited from contacting the 'Individual A' mentioned in the criminal complaint. This 'Individual A' is the man who accompanied her to Seattle to carry out the surveillance mission. In the previous episode, we referred to him as the 'companion,' and we will continue to use this term in this episode. She is also prohibited from contacting the two Chinese officials and Lai Ching-te's son's family. The lawyer also stated that she must fully declare her assets; without court permission, real estate cannot be sold, transferred, or re-mortgaged, and large assets cannot be used at will. The lawyer's subtext is: her passport is surrendered, she cannot go to the airport, and her location is monitored in real-time via her phone. If she were to disappear, the house where her two daughters live would be confiscated, and her husband's family would have to pay for her; so how could she flee? And where could she possibly run to?

The written proposal lists at least $700,000 in home equity from one residence, plus $120,000 in guarantees from friends and family, totaling over $800,000. However, reporters attending the hearing reported that a total of three properties were mentioned during the hearing, with a total value exceeding $1.2 million. These two sets of figures are not on the same scale; the $700,000 is the net equity of the residence in the written proposal after deducting the mortgage, while the $1.2 million is the reporter's total for the three properties mentioned in court. The real trouble is not the difference between the two sets of figures, but that the written proposal focused only on one residence. So, why did the other two appear in court? The prosecution showed the judge a completely different life of Zhang's. While Zhang's husband, children, home, and work are in the United States, her parents and siblings are all in China. The prosecution also stated that one of her siblings had worked for the Chinese government, though they did not disclose the specific department or position. The detention hearing is concerned with whether she could quickly settle down in China after leaving the United States. The prosecution said that Zhang has businesses and bank accounts in China, and her accounts have had funds entering them; she can still access hundreds of thousands of dollars in her Chinese bank accounts. Since 2014, she has traveled abroad twenty-nine times, twelve of which were to China. Of course, the twenty-nine trips themselves do not prove anything. The prosecution, however, placed her Chinese relatives and business funds together, intending to prove that Zhang not only has the ability to leave the country but also the conditions to settle down and live in China.

There is also a new development that the prosecution is seizing upon even more firmly than the 29 trips: the companion who traveled with Zhang Wanying to Seattle, whose identity has not been made public in the criminal complaint, returned to China on a one-way ticket about two weeks ago. A one-way ticket alone does not prove that he fled back to China, but the timing is very favorable for the prosecution. He was the person who traveled to Seattle with Zhang, and this person has now arrived in China. Two weeks later, Zhang Wanying walked into the Los Angeles airport with a one-way ticket. Now, the ticket-purchasing habits argued by the defense were interpreted by the prosecution as the same departure route. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Elbogen made a very strong argument in court, calling Zhang an agent of a hostile foreign power and stating that he had kept even his own family in the dark. The prosecution used this to counter the defense's family card: if Zhang Wanying could previously conduct secret affairs behind her husband's and children's backs, to what extent could family ties now stop her from fleeing?

The piece of evidence that sparked the most dispute in court, perhaps, never even appeared in the courtroom: a Chinese passport. The prosecution claimed that Zhang has an alternative Chinese passport, but the FBI actually did not find it when searching her residence. If this Chinese passport exists and was not confiscated, it could become a tool for Zhang's departure. However, the defense's written submission presented a conflicting version, stating that the investigating agents told Pretrial Services that Zhang holds dual U.S.-China citizenship without providing any basis. After the search, the FBI also did not find that Chinese passport. The U.S. passport that Zhang typically uses has already been seized by FBI agents. The defense lawyers also stated that Zhang is willing to sign a confirmation that she holds no other passports or travel documents, and if she lies, she is willing to bear the liability for perjury. Both sides thus got stuck right here. The prosecution said she has a Chinese passport that just hasn't been found, while the defense insisted there is no passport. Whether it is valid and what the prosecution's basis is were neither explained in court. The judge does not need to ascertain whether this passport actually exists; he only needs to determine whether, until the doubts are ruled out, surrendering the U.S. passport and wearing a GPS electronic shackle are sufficient to keep Zhang in the United States. The GPS can indeed report where she goes, but it cannot prevent her from leaving. Consequently, this dispute over the passport became a vulnerability for the defense.

Let's talk about that $190,000. The prosecution told the judge that a bank account belonging to Zhang Wanying in China had received $190,000 from an unregistered cryptocurrency trader. The prosecution also stated that she had hundreds of thousands of dollars at her disposal in China. Based on the available materials, well, they did not link this $190,000 to the surveillance in Seattle. What the prosecution intended to demonstrate during the detention hearing was that after Zhang Wanying arrived in China, she still had large sums of money available to her. More troublesome is that the source of this money was an entity known as an unregistered cryptocurrency trader, yet the background of the transaction was not explained in court, which collided with the contradictions in her asset declaration. The issue shifted from how much money she had to whether she had clearly explained the source of the funds. In the defense's written proposal, they had already agreed to a full disclosure of assets, and that assets could not be transferred without court permission. However, in court, the judge was more concerned with whether she had previously been clear about these funds and their origins. The prosecution stated that after Zhang Wanying was arrested, she filled out asset information for the Pretrial Services Department and only declared one property; later, her husband disclosed two other properties. The defense attorney explained that this was a misunderstanding, which the prosecutor could not accept. The prosecutor stated in court that Zhang had lied to the Pretrial Services Department, and that Zhang herself is a real estate agent who should know exactly how many properties she owns. Judge Stephen King also pointed out several inconsistencies, such as how many properties there actually are, how much in total assets she has, and where this money came from—none of which Zhang had clearly accounted for. Consequently, this became the turning point of the entire hearing. Since Zhang had been a real estate agent for 10 years, and property rights, due diligence, leasing, and sales were her daily business, the 'misunderstanding' argument was difficult to convince the judge. Federal bail law allows judges to investigate the source of collateral, property rights, loans, and the origin of funds. If these cannot be explained clearly, no matter how expensive the properties are, they may not guarantee that she will return to court. Thus, the question became: if she could not even state clearly at once how many properties she had under her name, why should the court believe that Zhang had fully disclosed all assets and travel documents that could support her departure? Existing reports do not explain why the other two properties did not appear in the initial declaration, nor do they explain what the 'misunderstanding' mentioned by the defense actually refers to. But as long as key assets remain unexplained, these houses pledged to the court can hardly prove that she will definitely return to face trial. The defense originally wanted to use the houses to prove her roots are in the United States, but the prosecution used the same set of houses to prove her financial untrustworthiness; the more houses there are, the less weight the guarantee carries. In the end, Judge Stephen King did not accept the home detention proposal and ruled that Zhang Wanying remain in federal custody. According to the accounts of reporters in the courtroom, the judge considered her frequent trips abroad, her relatives and financial ties in China, the Chinese passport that the prosecution said was not found, the fact that her companion had already arrived in China, and the various contradictions in her asset declaration. The three properties, electronic monitoring, and guarantees from friends and family were not enough to ensure that Zhang Wanying would return to court.

Zhang Wanying is currently still facing a criminal complaint, and the case has not yet entered the formal indictment and plea stage. However, from the moment the hearing concluded, he must remain in the federal detention center. He can request that the federal district judge review the detention decision, and if new materials emerge regarding the $190,000 in three properties, Chinese accounts, or his passport that are sufficient to influence the judgment, Zhang can also request to reopen the hearing. The next date worth watching is October 19. Federal criminal procedure rules stipulate that after a defendant's initial appearance while in custody, a preliminary hearing must in principle be held within 14 days at the latest. Zhang's initial appearance was on October 5, and October 19 is exactly the 14th day. The threshold for a preliminary hearing is not to exclude reasonable doubt, nor is it to decide whether he is ultimately guilty. The judge only needs to determine whether the prosecution has probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed and that Zhang Wanying may have been involved. However, this preliminary hearing may not necessarily take place, as the decision could also be made by a federal grand jury. The federal grand jury we are referring to here is not the jury for the future formal trial. A federal grand jury is composed of 16 to 23 ordinary citizens, the proceedings are not public, and they usually only hear evidence submitted by the prosecution. They do not judge whether Zhang is guilty, but only whether the existing evidence is sufficient to formally indict Zhang. As long as at least twelve people on the grand jury agree, the prosecution's indictment can be approved. In a formal trial, the jury is usually composed of twelve people who must listen to the evidence and cross-examination from both the prosecution and the defense in court, and then determine whether the prosecution has proven the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Furthermore, a conviction requires the unanimous agreement of all twelve jurors. Simply put, the federal grand jury decides whether this person is qualified to be formally indicted, while the trial jury decides whether this person is actually guilty. One reviews the threshold for prosecution, and the other decides the final verdict. Therefore, if the grand jury approves the prosecution's formal indictment against Zhang before October 19, then the originally scheduled preliminary hearing will no longer need to be held, because the grand jury has already made a judgment on whether the prosecution has sufficient evidence to proceed with the indictment. The next stage has two things most worth watching. First, will the formal indictment add new charges? Second, can the prosecution substantiate the command relationship between Zhang Wanying and the Chinese government? The charge under Section 951 that Zhang Wanying is facing does not pursue whether he stole U.S. national secrets; it pursues whether a person in the United States agreed to accept the command of a foreign government or official to act on their behalf without declaring this agency relationship to the U.S. government. Therefore, renting a car to go to Seattle to photograph Lai's residence and vehicle, and then sending the photos back, only proves what Zhang Wanying did. To convict him under Section 951, the prosecution must also prove that the person on the other end of the phone represented the Chinese government or Chinese officials, and that Zhang also knew the identity of the other party. He still accepted the task, acted according to the requirements, and handed over the materials. The "Thank you for your hard work! Thanks, junior sister" in the indictment materials can prove that this was not an accidental filming, but that someone assigned a task, someone executed it, and finally someone verified it. However, the prosecution still has to prove the most critical step: why the person who issued the task could represent the Chinese government, and on what basis did Zhang Wanying know this? Therefore, what really needs to be watched in the next stage is not just how many more photos the prosecution can produce, but whether they can prove, one by one, the people on the Chinese side, the government background of those people, Zhang Wanying's knowledge, and his subsequent actions. This chain of command is the core of whether a conviction under Section 951 can be secured.

Looking back at the arguments from both the prosecution and the defense in this hearing, they were essentially both talking about the concept of detention. The defense placed the husband, daughter, career, and house here in the United States, while the prosecution placed her parents, siblings, business accounts, and travel companion on the China side. The final answer given by the judge was that the family and property on the US side could not outweigh the escape route provided by the China side. The issue is not that she has a transnational family, but that this transnational lifestyle overlapped with the accusation of secretly receiving instructions from Chinese officials. This is also the most ruthless aspect of the CCP's overseas operations. The person giving the orders hides behind masked names, and the agency remains on the other side of the national border across the Pacific Ocean. The person on WeChat calling her junior schoolmate was a Chinese official, but the one who walked into the court, lost her freedom, and had her family stake their house was Zhang Wanying herself. Her three properties were originally bargaining chips for her to secure bail, but the inconsistent numbers of properties instead made the judge suspect that she had not been transparent about her assets. The judge did not ask which country she claimed to love more; the judge asked whether the assets and family ties laid out on the table today could really keep her here when she must appear in court next time! Oh! Right after we finished recording and even editing our show today, big breaking news came in. It turns out that a current investigative reporter, formerly the chief investigative reporter for the British Daily Mail, Zhou Baozi (transliterated), revealed on a platform that he had found the identity of the companion who went to Seattle with Zhang to photograph the residence and license plate of Lai Ching-te's son. He said that this companion is a California construction businessman named Miao Fatai (transliterated). Previously, our view of his image came only from a screenshot of airport car rental surveillance footage, where his face was blurred. Furthermore, the prosecution had neither disclosed his identity nor prosecuted him. Moreover, it was reported that he had already bought a one-way ticket to China and returned two weeks ago, which led to previous speculations about whether Miao Fatai had long received news of the FBI investigation and fled. Today, because this investigative reporter found Miao Fatai's address, he also incidentally found his son Miao Jiaqi (transliterated), who is currently in college. The reporter conducted a telephone interview with Miao Jiaqi. In particular, according to the Rice-Anderson standard, Miao Jiaqi stated that he felt his father's intelligence might be a bit too inadequate to act as a spy. He also mentioned that his father came to the United States actually to allow his son to receive a better education. When asked why his father suddenly returned to China two weeks ago, Miao Jiaqi indicated that his mother in China had suddenly fallen ill, and his father went back to China to take care of her. If this is indeed the case, then the claim that Miao Fatai fled because he received advance notice would not hold up. As for more news regarding the Zhang Wanying case, we will continue to follow up for you. Please also pay attention to our channel, subscribe to Yaoyaojiang, like us, save to favorites, and share. See you next time!