A federal judge in Urbana has postponed until February the trial of the man accused of kidnapping U of I visiting scholar Yingying Zhang. The trial of Brendt Christensen is now scheduled to begin on February 27, 2018.
Yingying Zhang's family is asking President Trump for help in finding their missing daughter.
In a hearing lasting less than five minutes, Brendt Christensen entered a “not guilty” plea Thursday in a federal courtroom in Urbana to the charge of kidnapping Yingying Zhang.
Prosecutors accuse Christensen, a recent University of Illinois graduate student, of abducting Zhang, a U of I visiting scholar from China, from a campus bus stop on June 9th.
The U.S. Justice Department says a federal grand jury has indicted Brendt Christensen of Champaign with the kidnapping of visiting Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang from the University of Illinois’ Urbana-Champaign campus.
Brendt Christensen, the man charged in the kidnapping of Yingying Zhang, was ordered held without bond Wednesday until his trial.
