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 family of missing Chinese scholar Yingying Zhang has increased the amount of reward money for information about her location to $50,000.

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.