Wealthy Chinese student convicted of deadly crash is deported
SEATTLE - A 21-year-old Chinese exchange student convicted of vehicular homicide for a deadly 2012 crash in Des Moines was deported back to China on Thursday.
Yichun Xu was placed on a commercial flight back to China by officers of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he had served a portion of his 17½-month prison sentence.
According to court documents, Xu was driving at freeway speeds on surface streets with four women in his newly purchased 2008 Mercedes C300 in November 2012 when he ran a stop sign at South 240th Street and slammed into the driver’s side door of a car that had the right-of-way.
The woman driving the car that Xu struck - Brenda Gomez - was headed to a birthday party with four family members. Gomez suffered a traumatic brain injury and died on Nov. 19. Three others in the car were seriously injured.
At the time of the crash, Xu was visiting the United States on a student visa for eight weeks to attend South Puget Sound Community College. He had purchased the Mercedes four days earlier but did not have a valid Washington state driver’s license and later told police he had never driven in the United States, investigators said.
After the crash, Xu was jailed on $2 million bail, but his wealthy Chinese family posted bail about four months later and he was released.
Xu pleaded guilty in February 2014 to vehicular homicide and three counts of reckless endangerment and was sentenced in March to 17½ months in state prison. He was released this month after earning a one-third reduction of his sentence for good behavior and credit for the four months served in jail.
On Nov. 6 an immigration judge ordered Xu deported back to China. As part of the order, Xu is banned from re-entering the U.S. for 10 years.
Yichun Xu was placed on a commercial flight back to China by officers of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after he had served a portion of his 17½-month prison sentence.
According to court documents, Xu was driving at freeway speeds on surface streets with four women in his newly purchased 2008 Mercedes C300 in November 2012 when he ran a stop sign at South 240th Street and slammed into the driver’s side door of a car that had the right-of-way.
The woman driving the car that Xu struck - Brenda Gomez - was headed to a birthday party with four family members. Gomez suffered a traumatic brain injury and died on Nov. 19. Three others in the car were seriously injured.
At the time of the crash, Xu was visiting the United States on a student visa for eight weeks to attend South Puget Sound Community College. He had purchased the Mercedes four days earlier but did not have a valid Washington state driver’s license and later told police he had never driven in the United States, investigators said.
 Brenda Gomez |
After the crash, Xu was jailed on $2 million bail, but his wealthy Chinese family posted bail about four months later and he was released.
Xu pleaded guilty in February 2014 to vehicular homicide and three counts of reckless endangerment and was sentenced in March to 17½ months in state prison. He was released this month after earning a one-third reduction of his sentence for good behavior and credit for the four months served in jail.
On Nov. 6 an immigration judge ordered Xu deported back to China. As part of the order, Xu is banned from re-entering the U.S. for 10 years.
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