Charges dropped against former club promoter accused of sexual assault

All charges were dropped Monday against a man accused in two sexual assaults from seven and five years ago.

Zeng Fu Lin, 41, still breathes a sigh of relief when he thinks of the moment on Friday when a jury acquitted him of four counts of sexual assault.

“These people come to Vegas and do things they regret later, and they are just trying to find someone to blame,” Lin said in an interview Tuesday. “They can hurt me, they did hurt me, and they hurt the real victims.”

Lin was arrested in November when he landed in New York, returning from Singapore. Police said DNA tied him to sexual assaults that allegedly occurred in 2015 and 2017. A warrant released by police in December said Lin, who also went by Jay Lin, was working as a club promoter when he met the women he was accused of sexually assaulting.

Defense attorneys Warren Geller and Frank Cofer argued Lin had consensual sex with both women, but they changed their stories when confronted by their boyfriends. The attorneys said the women did not show detectives their phone logs, which showed both women called Lin multiple times after their night together.

“He has a very public-facing job,” Cofer said. “It’s notable that neither of the accusers provided this information to law enforcement. They didn’t provide the text messages; they didn’t provide the fact that they’ve been having communications with our client.”

One of the women, a registered nurse who said she was drugged and raped, did not undergo a medical exam for three days and a toxicology report showed she had no drugs in her body, Geller said.

“If the police can just do better investigations,” Lin said. “Get the number from the woman, check her phone. My phone number is right there. If he calls me, I’m able to tell my side of the story. … They had my number but they never called me.”

Lin worked as an independent contractor for a decade promoting nightclubs for Tao after graduating from Rutgers University. The Tao group moved him to Singapore for over a year to promote Marquee Singapore, and Lin was on his way back to New Jersey to visit his family when he was arrested in New York.

Lin said he spent 17 days on Rikers Island, a prison complex in New York, while awaiting extradition to Las Vegas. Although he was convinced he did not rape the women, he said he attempted suicide because of the shame he felt and the conditions on Rikers Island.

Lin pleaded not guilty in January and began a four-day trial on Sept. 20. He faced four life sentences if convicted.

After nearly two hours of deliberation Friday afternoon, a jury found Lin not guilty on all four counts.

“I feel relieved,” he said Tuesday. “Just the fact that my family can really start their normal life again, not to have to feel hurt or devastated. That really made me so grateful.”

Lin said he probably will not return to Las Vegas because he lost many friends from the accusations, and he’s hoping to offer peer support for other people falsely accused of crimes.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.