Mistrial in O.C. Love Triangle Murder Case

A judge declared a mistrial Thursday when jurors deadlocked in the two-month murder trial of Li-Yun (Lisa) Peng, a Taiwanese national accused of killing her rich husband’s mistress and the woman’s child in a case that spawned a media frenzy in the Chinese community here and abroad.

The jury was stuck 10 to 2 in favor of convicting Peng, 45, of stabbing Ranbing (Jennifer) Ji, 25, and suffocating 5-month-old Kevin in Ji’s Mission Viejo apartment in May, 1993.

But reporters were ejected abruptly from the courtroom without hearing the jury’s explanation after Orange County Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary heard the whir of a camera. She had banned the use of cameras in her courtroom last week, after one of the two dozen journalists covering the trial for the Chinese-language press approached a juror, who was subsequently dismissed. O’Leary has accused some of those journalists of harassing jurors.

Attorneys are to return to court Tuesday to begin scheduling a retrial.

The jury foreman, who favored conviction, said in an interview that the panel was hopelessly divided almost from the start a week ago. The two holdout jurors, described only as male, were not persuaded that Lisa Peng was at Ji’s apartment when the killings occurred, said the foreman, who asked not to be named.

“The gap was so wide,” the foreman said. “It wasn’t just a minor thing--is this first- or second-degree murder. We were at opposite ends of the scale.”

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko said he was disappointed and had feared that jurors might be swayed by emotion. The sensational story of sex, wealth and murder commanded an audience as far away as China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

“This was probably one of the easiest cases to present as far as what the evidence was. . . . On the other hand, it’s a tremendously emotional case,” Molko said.

The defense had contended that tycoon Tseng (Jim) Peng, 52, had slain his lover of three years to avoid a divorce that might shame his Taiwan-based electronics empire.

The jury of seven women and five men never broke a deadlock they announced last Friday, after deliberating less than a full day. O’Leary sent the panel back to the jury room to keep trying.

After the mistrial, Molko said one of the holdouts told him he simply had doubt about the prosecution case but offered no specific reason. None of the jurors, Molko said, appeared to conclude that Jim Peng was the killer.

Jurors apparently were ushered out a back door and unavailable for comment at the courthouse.

A close friend of the Pengs called the outcome an encouraging partial victory for Lisa Peng.

“It’s positive,” said Bob Marmorstone, an Irvine resident who has worked as a consultant for Jim Peng and known the couple for 18 years. “The major goal here is to see Lisa get acquitted.”

Marmorstone, who faxed Jim Peng daily updates on the deliberations, said his friend was “on pins and needles” hoping for acquittal. Jim Peng refused to return from Asia to testify.

“We would be happier if it were concluded and concluded successfully for our side,” said defense lawyer Marshall Schulman. He estimated it would take at least three months to produce and review transcripts before the retrial could take place.

The press contingent’s sometimes disruptive presence was felt again as O’Leary heard the sound of a camera rewinding just as she announced the mistrial.

“I just heard a camera,” O’Leary snapped from the bench. “The courtroom’s cleared.”

Media representatives were shooed out, though relatives of the victim and defendant stayed as the judge asked jurors whether a breakthrough was possible.

Lisa Peng received the news impassively.

She was arrested in January, 1994, about eight months after Ji had been found dead of 18 stab wounds. The infant was found suffocated with a T-shirt stuffed in his mouth.

Prosecutors suggested that Lisa Peng, jealous and afraid of losing her share of the family’s multimillion-dollar business, ambushed Ji after setting up a face-to-face meeting at the victim’s apartment.

A bite mark in Ji’s left arm was linked to Lisa Peng through DNA evidence. The defense said Lisa Peng had bitten Ji during a confrontation earlier that day, but did not kill her.

Schulman, contending that the true killer was Jim Peng, argued that the apartment showed no signs of struggle. Though authorities said Jim Peng was en route from Asia when the slayings occurred, Schulman said the time of death was not definite enough to rule Jim Peng out.

The case found an audience across the Pacific and threw Southern California’s Chinese community into a debate over sexual politics and morals--chiefly about rich businessmen who seek mistresses on impoverished mainland China. The killing was the basis for a movie last year by a Hong Kong director.

Strong feelings were apparent after the mistrial. El Monte resident Angie Fu, holding silk-flower wreaths she had made for the prosecutor, expressed outrage.

“This is a disaster,” said Fu, a native of China who has lived in Southern California for eight years. “I feel she’s guilty.”

The Pengs lived in Taiwan and ran Ranger Communications, a global maker of CB radios with operations in San Diego, Europe and throughout Asia.

Jim Peng met Ji--educated, beautiful and less than half his age--at a resort bar in October, 1990, while in China for an electronics convention, according to his testimony at his wife’s preliminary hearing. He later hired Ji, who was working as a restaurant hostess, to join his company in Shanghai. He also opened a personal bank account for her in Hong Kong. Ji left Ranger after a disagreement with another employee and Jim Peng hired her to run a new venture.

The two became intimate in May, 1991, and Ji became pregnant the following summer. Jim Peng moved her to an apartment in Mission Viejo and visited her on business trips to California.

That apartment was just a few miles from a home owned by the Pengs in Rancho Santa Margarita. The couple’s two teen-age sons attended schools in Southern California and the Pengs stayed in the home on their regular visits. Lisa Peng once found some of Ji’s clothes in the home and cut them to pieces with scissors, according to court documents.

Ji’s parents, who live in China, have filed a lawsuit claiming Jim Peng should have known the affair would lead to violence. The $2-million lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.