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Peng Breaks Her Silence, Denies She’s a Murderer

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Convicted killer Li-Yun “Lisa” Peng, who was stoic through a two-month retrial, broke her silence during an emotional courtroom outburst Monday and denied killing her tycoon husband’s mistress and the woman’s infant son.

“I’m not guilty. I didn’t do it,” she said, sobbing, during a routine hearing to schedule sentencing.

Peng, 46, a Taiwanese national, was convicted Thursday of fatally stabbing her husband’s 25-year-old lover, Ranbing “Jennifer” Ji, and suffocating 5-month-old Kevin Ji.

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Peng surprised even her lawyer, Marshall M. Schulman, when she abruptly appealed to Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan during a discussion of the sentencing.

“Your honor, I’m not guilty. Please give me a chance to testify. I want to testify,” Peng said. “Mr. Schulman, you know I’m not guilty. I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I really want to go home.”

It was Peng’s most public denial since she was arrested for the Aug. 18, 1993, slayings. Peng did not testify in either of two trials. Although she broke down crying at several points during the first trial last year, Peng showed little emotion during months of the most recent proceedings as she listened through a headset to a Chinese interpreter.

Schulman said Peng’s outburst, delivered in English, made him feel “extremely sorry” for her.

“She’s been found guilty of these two terrible crimes. The realization of what she’s been found guilty of and the consequences is overwhelming,” Schulman said. “All along, she’s professed her innocence.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Molko said he was surprised by the timing of Peng’s comments, but not by what she said.

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“It is very common in a lot of our cases to hear protestations,” said Molko, who was prosecutor in both trials. Those denials usually come later, at sentencing, he said.

Peng faces up to life in prison without possibility of parole. She is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 6.

Peng was convicted of second-degree murder in Ji’s death and first-degree murder for the slaying of Kevin, who was fathered by Peng’s husband. The verdict included a multiple-murder finding that makes her eligible for the life term without parole.

Ji was found dead in her Mission Viejo apartment with 18 stab wounds, and Kevin lay in his crib with a T-shirt stuffed in his mouth.

Molko said Peng ambushed Ji in a rage over the victim’s three-year affair with Peng’s husband, Tseng “Jim” Peng, a wealthy Taiwanese businessman who runs Ranger Communications, an international electronics firm. Lisa Peng had warned Ji away from her husband in the past and once chopped up some of Ji’s clothes she had found in a closet.

DNA testing of Lisa Peng’s saliva linked her to a bite mark on the victim’s left arm.

The defense argued that the murder was carried out by Jim Peng. Schulman said the millionaire businessman feared Ji was about to end the relationship and might seek child support and a share of a business in which he and Ji were once involved. But jurors concluded that Jim Peng, 53, could not have killed because he was en route from Asia at the time.

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The first trial ended in September with a jury deadlocked 10 to 2 in favor of conviction. The love-triangle case received widespread attention in Taiwan and within Southern California’s Chinese community, prompting debate on who was to blame for the tragedy.

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