A 38-year-old Fujian Province man was sentenced to life in prison after he was found guilty of swindling a woman out of 7 million yuan ($1.1 million), Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People's Court announced Friday.
The court justified the sentence's severity because the defendant, Huang Su'an, disputed most of the prosecution's accusations at the trial, including whether he asked the victim, Xie Lei, to send him the money through a third party, according to a press release from the court.
Under Chinese law, one can be sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for defrauding a person or entity out of more than 500,000 yuan.
During the trial in September, the prosecution said that Huang had met Xie in 2011 on an online matchmaking site, where he posed as a Chinese-American businessman.
After several online conversations, he convinced Xie to give him 7 million yuan to invest, and asked that she send the money in cash through a third party.
Huang's attorney argued that the prosecution's case hinged on indirect evidence that failed to link his client to the cash or the intermediaries who picked up the money.
The court said the sentence reflected Huang's malicious intent in bilking the victim out of money. The court also took into account the negative effects that might emerge from Huang's unwillingness to confess.
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