Wife’s Attorney Says Husband Killed Mistress : Trial: Lawyer for Li-Yun Peng, on trial in woman’s death, alleges that her Taiwanese businessman spouse wanted to extricate himself from affair and avoid embarrassing divorce. He has alibi, prosecution counters.

In a surprise twist, the lawyer for a Taiwanese woman accused of murdering her husband’s lover and the mistress’ baby turned the tables on the philandering husband Tuesday by alleging in court that he was the real killer.

The husband, Tseng (Jim) Peng, has remained out of reach in Asia despite the prosecution’s efforts to have him testify against his wife, Li-Yun (Lisa) Peng, 45.

Lisa Peng is accused of stabbing 25-year-old Ranbing (Jennifer) Ji 18 times in a jealous rage at Ji’s Mission Viejo apartment, and then suffocating Ji’s 5-month-old son.

Defense lawyer Marshall Schulman charged that the husband fatally stabbed Ji to extricate himself from a three-year affair that had soured after she bore his child and to avoid a divorce that might have cast shame upon the Pengs’ multimillion-dollar business empire.

“Whoever was in there with [Ji] was someone she knew and trusted. . . . That person is Jim Peng,” Schulman told jurors during his opening statement in Orange County Superior Court. “What could be better--getting rid of both [women]. He ends up with all the bucks and all the business.”

Authorities ruled out Jim Peng as a suspect because he was on a flight from Hong Kong at the time investigators believe the slayings took place. He reported finding Ji’s body on a couch after arriving Aug. 18, 1993.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko, told jurors Monday that Jim Peng could not have arrived in California in time to commit the killings.

Lisa Peng was in Orange County at the time and authorities allege that DNA tests link her saliva to a bite mark found on Ji’s left arm.

But Schulman said the time of death was not determined with enough certainty to rule out Jim Peng as the killer.

Jim Peng arrived in Orange County about 1:30 p.m. that day but had to wait outside at the apartment complex because no one answered Ji’s door and he had no key, according to his testimony during his wife’s preliminary hearing. He spent several hours waiting at the complex’s leasing office and said he later got in the apartment by trying the door, which turned out to be unlocked. Jim Peng said he discovered Ji’s body about 11 p.m.

Schulman expressed skepticism that Jim Peng did not try opening the door during his nine-hour wait and suggested the killings could have occurred that afternoon.

Confronting what might be the prosecution’s most damning evidence against Lisa Peng, Schulman said Ji’s bite mark resulted from a fight the two women had earlier in the day. He said Lisa Peng went to confront Ji but was attacked and bit Ji in order to escape.

But the attorney said Lisa Peng did not kill her husband’s mistress. Schulman said the murder scene about 12 hours later showed no signs of a struggle during the stabbing.

“Whoever went into that apartment . . . was expected and was in there by invitation,” Schulman said. He said Ji was expecting Jim Peng to visit.

Schulman painted Jim Peng as a calculating executive who was accustomed to getting his way and who misled both women for years, telling his wife the affair was over and promising Ji he would marry her.

Schulman said Jim Peng even sought to orchestrate a confrontation between the two by moving Ji to a Mission Viejo apartment up the street from the supermarket where his wife shopped while staying at the Pengs’ home in nearby Rancho Santa Margarita.

“He is the boss. He runs the show. He is the big man,” Schulman said.

The Pengs lived in Taiwan and were co-owners of Ranger Communications, a worldwide manufacturer of CB radios with factories and offices in Asia, Europe and San Diego. Jim Peng testified that he met Ji during a business trip to mainland China and later hired her to work for Ranger. He eventually moved her to the apartment in Mission Viejo.

The prosecution’s first witness, Ji’s oldest sister, testified later Tuesday that Lisa Peng had called the Ji family home several times asking relatives to halt the affair.

“Her voice sounded rather fierce,” said Ranbo (Jackie) Ji.

She said her sister graduated from a university in the resort city of Quindao, China, before getting work as a public-relations assistant at a major hotel. Jennifer Ji was working at the hotel when she met Jim Peng in August, 1990.

The murder case has captivated many Chinese Americans in California and received news coverage in Taiwan and mainland China. A Hong Kong director based a fictional film on the case last year.

The murder trial continues today before Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary and is expected to last more than a month. If convicted of both killings, Lisa Peng faces life in prison without possibility of parole.