In its second-instance ruling, the Guangdong High People's Court rejected the appeals of Zhao Bing and others, upheld the original judgment, and for the first time explicitly described Hui Jian in the ruling as an anti-fraud figure.
The Huizhou Intermediate People's Court handed down a first-instance verdict to Zhao Bing and more than ten defendants; principal offender Zhao Bing was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve for intentional injury, and the remaining defendants received various sentences.
Zhao Bing and others repeatedly beat Hui Jian on a hillside in Jiangxi, causing severe head injuries and fatal intracranial hemorrhage; the killers then covered his body with dry grass and fled.