A 38-year-old man pleaded not guilty Monday to a charge of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of rare and historical Chinese manuscripts from the UCLA library system.
Jeffrey Ying of Fremont, in Alameda County, is charged with theft of major artwork, a felony punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison.
Ying, who was arraigned in Los Angeles federal court, was ordered released on $170,000 bond and a tentative trial date of Nov. 4 was set, according to the Justice Department.
According to an affidavit filed in the case, Ying stole rare books and manuscripts worth nearly $216,000 from UCLA’s library from December 2024 to July 2025. He would rent the documents, bring them home to the Bay Area for days at a time, then return a dummy manuscript instead of the authentic one, prosecutors allege.
He typically traveled to China within days of the thefts, prosecutors contend.
According to the affidavit, library officials noticed that several rare Chinese manuscripts were missing from the UCLA East Asian Library, and an initial investigation revealed the books were last viewed by a visitor who identified himself as “Alan Fujimori.” Due to the rarity and value of the books, they are not in regular circulation in the library and must be reserved and checked out.
UCLA staff reported receiving information that the name Alan Fujimori is associated with a known book thief responsible for committing similar thefts at UC Berkeley, according to the affidavit.
During the investigation, prosecutors allege, law enforcement searched Ying’s Brentwood hotel room and found blank manuscripts and paperwork in the style and manner of the books that Ying had checked out from the university. Investigators also found pre-made labels known as asset tags associated with the same manuscripts that could be used to create “dummy” books to return to the library in place of the originals, the Justice Department said.
Ying requested books from UC San Diego and UC Irvine via a system that UCLA operates to retrieve books from the collections of other UC campuses in Southern California, and those books were transferred to the UCLA library system, federal prosecutors said.
Upon Ying’s arrest last month, authorities found a fraudulent California identification card in the name of “Austin Chen” along with two library cards in the names of “Austin Chen” and “Jason Wang,” all thought to be aliases used by the defendant.