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Students from China get sentenced for stripping, beating, burning classmates
Three students from China were sentenced to prison on Wednesday for stripping, beating and burning two high school classmates in Rowland Heights in early 2015.
Yunyao "Helen" Zhai was sentenced Wednesday to 13 years in California state prison, Yuhan "Coco" Yang was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Xinlei "John" Zhang received a six-year sentence, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced in a prepared statement.
The 19-year-olds were charged with bullying a 16-year-old girl who was punched and slapped in March 2015 at a restaurant and at a park in Rowland Heights, east of L.A. Two days later, prosecutors said, the three kidnapped an 18-year-old classmate and took her to a park where she was stripped naked, beaten, punched, kicked, spat on, burned with cigarettes and forced to eat her own hair after they cut it off during a five-hour assault.
On Jan. 5, Zhai pleaded no contest to two felony counts: kidnapping and assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury. She also admitted to a special allegation that she personally inflicted great bodily injury during the commission of those crimes, the District Attorney's Office said.
At the same court date, Zhang pleaded no contest to kidnapping and assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, while Yang pleaded no contest to kidnapping and assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, the District Attorney's Office said. In addition, Yang admitted to a special allegation that she personally inflicted great bodily injury during the commission of those crimes.
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