Ziyi Dai

From Rofflehaus

Ziyi Dai was a graduate student in business administration who was married to Li Cao, an assistant mechanical engineering professor.

Dai was arrested on charges of assault on December 26, 2001, when his wife reported to Mary Greeley Hospital with cuts on her hands, fingers, and arm after Dai attacked her with a knife outside her third-floor office in Black Engineering Building. The charges were upgraded to attempted murder when it was discovered that Dai tried to pay his cellmate to kill his wife when the cellmate was released. Dai provided the prisoner with a handwritten map to Cao's house, but the prisoner refused and ratted Dai out.

Dai pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, but in September 2002, he pled guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

[edit] Ziyi's letters

End of story? Not quite. Soon after Dai's sentencing, the Des Moines Register reported that Cao was under investigation for faking her academic resume. What triggered the investigation? Dai had apparently written a letter that triggered the suspicions. In fact, he spammed many addresses with a series of long, tortorous, grammatically-challenged emails detailing the saga of how Cao "forged" her way into the mechanical engineering professorship and into Ziyi's heart.

To sum up the juicy parts: Ziyi claimed that Cao had a less than useful degree from "Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology for textile" but when she got to America, realized she needed a better opportunity. So she began dating "Ziyi Dai who is smart (graduated from the best University in China), young and studying in a very promising field --- semiconductor chip area" and used her feminine wiles to charm him. Ziyi quickly "fell in love with her appeared innocence."

Ziyi claims that she suggested marriage, and he happily agreed. He bitterly recounts that Cao benefited greatly from his "savings from parents and a high paid job. So life became really good for Li Cao. Ziyi paid her debt, spent thousands of dollars to fix her almost completely damaged teeth, had good health insurance to cure her disease" and took her to vacation hotspots such as "Duluth, Chicago, Islands in Florida."

But, Ziyi laments, "All these were not enough." He was "just a temporary tool in her life. She wanted more." He states that she continued to play innocent, all the while manipulating professors, taking credit for research, all to get a better job. Ziyi says he helped in her job search, but "her research work was a failure."

Ziyi alleges that Cao's interviewers at Iowa State fell hard for her "nice presentation mostly prepared by Ziyi" and instead of looking at her credentials, "those old professors in her job interview just kept staring at her skirts, legs, chest."

[edit] The conclusion

Students who reported receiving these emails to DPS in late 2002 and early 2003 were told that they were part of a campaign of harassment against Cao, which was launched by Ziyi's family and friends in China after she agreed to testify against him. The emails were sent to engineering students at several universities, ISU mailing lists, professional engineering organizations, state government officials, and the department of Immigration and Naturalization Services.

Needless to say, the allegations against Cao (and the "accomplishments" Ziyi claimed for himself) were completely made up.

Ziyi's supporters did not succeed in driving Cao from her position as an assistant professor. Cao has kept her public comments about the situation to a minimum.

It is worth noting that Ziyi's attempts to destroy his wife's career and her relationships with her neighbors, students, and colleagues, are typical of abusive spouses who feel that they are losing control of their partners.