Drugged women, secret photos: Horrific details emerge as USC grad student confesses to police
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- Sizhe Weng, who recently earned a doctorate in electrical engineering from USC, confessed to drugging and sexually assaulting three women. Investigators found explicit photographs, leather straps and syringes in his home.
- Police suspect there are more victims, some potentially unaware of the assaults because they were unconscious at the time.
- Weng, who allegedly said he would flee to his native China if he could, is being held without bail.
While pursuing his doctorate in electrical engineering at USC, Sizhe Weng maintained ties with female friends, including a fellow graduate student and two women from back home in China.
On outings that started innocently — a trip to San Diego, a ride from the airport, a shared meal — Weng drugged the women, first with powder in their drinks or food and then with syringes and tubing in their anuses, before sexually assaulting them and photographing them, according to a prosecutor’s motion.
He tied up two of the women with straps and manipulated their bodies into sexually suggestive poses, the motion said.
After his Aug. 28 arrest, Weng described the assaults on the three victims “at length and in detail” to Los Angeles Police Department detectives, according to the Sept. 2 motion by L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Catherine Mariano, who argued that he should be held without bail.
Investigators overheard Weng saying in his jail cell, which contained recording equipment, that he would return to China if he made bail, the motion said. China has no extradition treaty with the United States.
At Weng’s residence, the motion said, investigators found sexually explicit Polaroid images of the three victims and a medicine bottle with liquid that tested positive for midazolam — typically used for sedation in minor medical procedures — which Weng allegedly injected into the women’s anuses.
The investigators found several pinhole and snake cameras, as well as flash memory cards and electronic devices “believed to contain additional images and/or videos of defendant drugging and sexually assaulting women.” They also found leather straps, syringes, red tubing and dental mouth devices, the motion said.
To sedate his victims, Weng acquired drugs typically used by medical professionals from a supplier in Germany, according to the motion.
LAPD police began investigating the student in January after German authorities reached out pertaining a similar investigation in Europe involving a Chinese national who they learned was a student living in Los Angeles for several years.
The sexual assaults occurred on Dec. 10, 2021; Aug. 1, 2022; and over a period in 2023 and 2024, according to court records. But Weng, who also goes by Steve, did not come to the attention of the LAPD until January, when German authorities reached out about his involvement in a sex crimes and drugs investigation there, said LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton, who oversees the detective bureau.
“As soon as we became aware of actionable information, we opened an investigation,” Hamilton said. “It took us a while to catch up to all the activities this individual has been involved in, in L.A.”
Weng, 30, who co-authored more than two dozen academic papers and worked in the lab of Stephen Cronin, a prominent USC engineering professor, was charged on Sept. 2 with rape, sodomy and sexual penetration by use of a controlled substance or anesthesia. He pleaded not guilty.
Hamilton said the evidence discovered at Weng’s home pointed detectives to additional victims.
“Based on the investigation, we suspect there are more victims, and some of those victims may not know what happened,” Hamilton said. “We are looking at patterns of activity and we have evidence that says there are other victims.”
A judge granted Mariano’s request for no bail and set the next hearing in the case for Jan. 14. If convicted of all charges, Weng faces 25 years to life in prison, plus an additional 56 years.
Weng’s attorney, Daniel Perlman, did not respond to requests for comment.
According to the bail motion, Weng’s first victim was a childhood friend, identified as Jane Doe 1, who traveled with him to San Diego in December 2021. On the trip, Weng brought drugs he received from Germany as well as leather straps and dental devices, the motion said.
He used a pill crusher to make a powder from benzodiazepine pills that he placed with water in small glass vials, the motion said. At a bar, he put the concoction in his friend’s drink when she wasn’t looking, the motion said.
After they returned to their hotel room, he used a syringe and tubing to inject her anally with midazolam, also soaking a towel with the anesthetic sevoflurane and covering her nose and mouth with a mask, according to the motion.
After she lost consciousness, he tied her up with leather straps and vaginally raped her, switching to anal penetration after she resisted by kicking, the motion said.
Weng “filmed and photographed Jane Doe 1’s body in sexually compromising positions,” the motion said. In one image, she “appeared unconscious with a plastic dental device in her mouth exposing her gums and teeth.” Other images showed her “placed in different positions highlighting her vaginal and anal areas while her legs remained bound with leather straps.”
The next victim, Jane Doe 2, was a friend who came from China to study in the United States. Weng picked her up at the airport and slipped crushed benzodiazepines into a drink she bought, according to the motion.
At her Airbnb, she blamed her tiredness on jet lag and went to sleep, the motion said.
As with the first victim, Weng injected her rectum with midazolam and covered her nose and mouth with a sevoflurane-soaked cloth, according to the motion. He then “hog tied her wrists and ankles with straps and proceeded to penetrate her vagina and her anus with his penis.”
He also photographed her while unconscious and “bound in different positions,” the motion said.
Walt Teague had given up hope of making an arrest in the Koreatown triple murder.
Jane Doe 3 was a classmate in Weng’s doctoral program whom he considered a close friend, according to the motion. He drugged her three times at her home in 2023 and 2024, the motion said.
The first time, he put two crushed benzodiazepine pills in her poke bowl and groped her after she fell asleep, according to the motion. The other two times he put benzodiazepines in her food or drink, then anally injected her with midazolam, putting his fingers in her anus and touching her whole body, the motion said. He also photographed her while she was nude and unconscious, the motion said.
Once, she sought medical attention because she felt extremely dizzy and drowsy after spending time with Weng. The motion does not say whether the woman or the other victims made any reports about Weng to authorities before the LAPD began investigating.
According to USC records, Weng entered a master’s program at the university in 2018. He had graduated from Lanzhou University in China with a bachelor’s degree in theoretical physics.
He wrote on his LinkedIn page that his focus at USC was “thin films and semiconductor processing.” Before completing his doctorate in May, he worked as a teaching assistant in physical electronics and applied quantum mechanics, leading “discussions, homework and exam review sessions for over 50 graduate and undergraduate students from different majors and backgrounds,” he wrote.
In a statement, USC said it was “fully cooperating” with the LAPD’s investigation.
“Although we cannot discuss individual cases due to student privacy laws, we can confirm that the university had already taken appropriate steps to bar the individual in question from campus pending resolution of the criminal proceedings,” the statement said. “USC has not received any reports from individuals potentially impacted.”
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