A Fountain Valley woman was convicted Tuesday of repeatedly sexually abusing her son, but acquitted of attempting to kill her daughter.
Yan Zhang, 45, was convicted of felony continuous sexual abuse of a child and misdemeanor child abuse. Jurors, who deliberated for about six hours, acquitted her of attempted murder. Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue dismissed a sentencing enhancement for attempted premeditated murder after closing arguments, which could have opened her to a life prison sentence.
After jurors convicted Zhang, they heard short arguments from the attorneys on an aggravating factor of the defendant abusing a position of trust. Jurors quickly found that factor true.
Zhang, who is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 3, faces six, 12 or 16 years in prison.
“She maintains her innocence and we do intend to appeal,” Zhang’s attorney, Roger Chien, said after the verdicts.
The defendant was accused of pulling a plastic bag over the head of her daughter in an attempt to kill her and attacking her with a jump rope, cleats and a roller beginning when she was 10 to 15 years old, according to Deputy District Attorney Alyssa Marie Staudinger. She was convicted of molesting her son for years, the prosecutor added.
The daughter was a reluctant witness, Staudinger acknowledged in closing arguments of Zhang’s trial Monday.
“She didn’t want to be here,” Staudinger said. “She didn’t want her mom punished. … She just wanted a mom.”
And yet the daughter testified about seeing “evil” in her mother’s eyes when she was enraged, Staudinger said.
Part of the evidence in the trial was video taken by the father.
“You can see the rage in her eyes,” Staudinger said. “The complete detachment.”
Zhang would at times withhold food from her daughter, the prosecutor said. If the family ate at 6 p.m., her daughter might not get fed until 9 p.m., she said.
The defendant’s ex-husband wanted to keep the family together and “lived in fear” of Zhang, Staudinger said. Zhang threatened to “pin everything on him if he called police,” according to the prosecutor.
The couple managed to negotiate a divorce with little acrimony initially. She was paid $100,000 and he got custody of the children with Zhang allowed visitation, Staudinger said.
“All she wants is money,” Staudinger said. “She gets 100 grand and she walks away.”
But when her son “blocked her number” and his sister also said she did not want to see their mother, the father pressed them for details why, the prosecutors said. At the end of September 2023, the son came forward with the allegations of sexual abuse, Staudinger said.
In November of that year, at the recommendation of police, their father sought a temporary restraining order against Zhang, Staudinger said.
Defense attorney Rachel Gelber argued that the son and daughter provided “inconsistent statements” over the years and “cannot be relied upon” for evidence.
“There’s no corroborating evidence,” she said.
For instance, she argued, the son said he took pictures of his sister’s injuries, but they were later deleted. The father said the same thing, she added.
The father placed surveillance video cameras in nearly every room of their Fountain Valley home but none of that footage was used as evidence, Gelber argued.
The attorney said that while jurors may frown on Zhang’s disciplinary tactics, it doesn’t mean she broke the law.
The daughter, son and father all had a “stake in the outcome” of the trial, Gelber said.
“This isn’t corroboration, this is coordination,” she said.