HOME SWEET HOME

Woman Who Snuck Into Mar-a-Lago to ‘Just Make Friends’ Deported to China

Yujing Zhang, a businesswoman, was sent home to China this weekend, more than two years after serving her eight-month sentence.

A Chinese businesswoman convicted of intruding at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach in 2019 has been deported, according to federal authorities. Yujing Zhang, 35, was returned to China more than two years after serving an eight-month sentence. Zhang was held at an immigration detention center for three times as long as her prison term because of delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Miami Herald reported. In March 2019, an uninvited Zhang flew to Florida and tried to bluff her way into then-President Donald Trump’s exclusive club. She was arrested on the property and later convicted of trespassing and lying to Secret Service agents.

Zhang told a court she had gone to Mar-a-Lago “to meet the president and family and just make friends.” She insisted that she’d been invited to the resort by Trump himself, something the judge dismissed. Investigators found a variety of electronic devices, including a tool used to detect hidden cameras and microphones, in her hotel room. Her then-attorney said at a sentencing hearing there was “nothing nefarious” about Zhang’s trip to Palm Beach and that instead she harbored a “fantastical idea” about partnering with the Trump family on a business venture.