The jokes were flying, but LiAngelo is in some real serious trouble.
Yahoo breaks it down.
If standard practices are applied, the three UCLA basketball players – including LiAngelo Ball – arrested Tuesday in mainland China under suspicion of shoplifting face between three and 10 years in prison if convicted, according a lawyer familiar with Chinese law who communicated with Yahoo on the condition of anonymity because he doesn’t want to speak out about the Chinese government.
The three men could even be detained for more than a month without American-style bail before local prosecutors even decide whether to press charges, according to William Nee, a Hong Kong-based researcher of the Chinese court system for Amnesty International.
Nee said it is not uncommon for a defendant to wait 30-37 days before being officially indicted. Among those indicted, Chinese prosecutors enjoy a 99.2 percent conviction rate, according to Nee’s research.
Chinese law calls for a fine and between three to 10 years in prison for anyone convicted of “robbing public or private property using force, coercion, or other methods.”
That is all the bad news, the only good news is being high-profile American citizens our government may get involved to get them the hell out of China, but that doesn’t mean it will actually happen.
“In most criminal cases that I know of, it’s very rare (or) unheard of for people to get American-style bail,” Nee said. “I doubt it’ll be likely that they’ll be released until they either are sentenced or fined, or whatever the punishment may be.”
Another United States-based lawyer with experience working criminal and civil courts in China agreed with Nee’s assessment and said it will take a concerted effort form the U.S. government to get them out of detention or have the charges/punishment relaxed.
Ball and the two players are accused of robbing a Louis Vuitton store. 20 chinese cops questioned both UCLA & Georgia Tech players before arresting Ball and the others.
Quite a wild story and could get more serious as the days go on.
Flip the page for a video news report…