Disputing a transcript leads to threat of deportation for UAlbany student

"Grenz said e-mails among UAlbany officials demonstrate there were meanspirited delays on Yi's grievances. The e-mails were turned over as part of the criminal case.

“One by the assistant dean of graduate studies, Jonathan Bartow, states: ‘I do not intend to immediately respond to (Yi’s) most recent message and I hope I set the stage for such slow movement on his request in my earlier message.'"

Carleo-Evangelist, Jordan. “Question of fairness at school; Lawyer says UAlbany overreacted in dealings with now-jailed student.” Albany Times Union. October 25, 2007: A1. http://albarchive.merlinone.net/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=6425910

"Attorney Eugene Grenz cast Liangdong Yi's arrest as case of post-Virginia Tech paranoia. City Court Judge Rachel L. Kretser, however, saw it more simply: University Police were incomplete in filling out the arrest documents. [...]

Yi, who was arrested when he returned to campus to talk to Murphy, later denied ever making that statement or threatening violence. His lawyer said it was a miscommunication stemming from Yi's limited ability with the English.

Carleo-Evangelist, Jordan. "Police mistake leads to dismissal; Ex-student faces possible deportation to China after judge finds threat case is tainted." Albany Times Union. March 14, 2008: D1. http://albarchive.merlinone.net/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=6541186

Clearly we don't have all the facts in that case just from those articles, but John M. Murphy** seemed to me to have lured that student on campus with a promise of a meeting to discuss an issue about grades only so they could arrest him (maybe Murphy trying to lure me on campus when I had made it clear to him that I did not feel safe going on campus prejudices me). Another article stated the student was "trying to see Murphy and was carrying Murphy's letter."*

UAlbany claimed the student had made "menacing statements to university officials, including that if he 'was a different sort of person, I might get violent and use a gun.'" Who alleged he'd made the statement? If UAlbany was genuinely worried about the student, why were university police so utterly careless in handling the case that they botched the arrest so badly the court had to dismiss? How the heck does a student trying to straighten out his transcript prior to graduation (and UAlbany did still give him a degree according to the TU) end up getting deported?

If an article on a foreign website can be trusted, the case became an international one.

Lawyers now plan a complaint to the UN Commission on Human Rights [in] this case. [Translation by Google Translate]

http://www.wenxuecity.com/news/2009/02/05/-786924.html (if a print prompt pops up from that page, just cancel it and it should be possible to see the article) (Archived by WebCite® at http://www.webcitation.org/6flJAmn70 )

Google Translate makes an interesting poetic hash of some of the user comments there, incidentally. E.g., "legal culture is a surface like flowers, not as good as unreasonable under the eaves".

I haven't seen any articles indicating that the student had received any support (or abuse) from fellow students, student groups, United University Professions, etc. Whether guilty or innocent, some people have a harder time finding help than others.

I have no idea what happened in the end. Local media is really poor at follow-throughs.

* Carleo-Evangelist, Jordan. “Threat case reveals caution at UAlbany; Chinese national banned from campus held in jail, accused of making menacing statements.” Albany Times Union. August 29, 2007: D1.?

** John M. Murphy is perhaps an inauspicious name when it comes to government employees.

A Federal jury today found John M. Murphy, a Cook County Associate Circuit Court Judge, guilty of 24 out of 27 counts of racketeering, mail fraud and extortion.

Malcolm, Andrew H. "Federal Jury Finds a Cooks County Judge Guilty of Corruption." N.Y. Times. June 15, 1984. http://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/15/us/federal-jury-finds-a-cooks-county-judge-guilty-of-corruption.html

"John M. Murphy, a former New York City congressman who served 18 years in the House before being caught taking a $50,000 cash payment in the Abscam sting operation in the late 1970s, died on Monday on Staten Island.

"Fried, Joseph P. "John Murphy, Congressman Convicted in Abscam Sting, Dies at 88." N.Y. Times. May 26, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/us/politics/john-murphy-staten-island-congressman-convicted-in-abscam-sting-dies-at-88.html